Book by Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), January 2025
Chapters:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Syria before the French Occupation
Chapter 2: The Sykes-Picot Agreement
Chapter 3: Arab Nationalism
Chapter 4: The Struggle against colonialist France in Syria (1919-46)
Chapter 5: Syria under Hafez Assad
Chapter 6: Syria under Bashar Al-Assad
Chapter 7: The Reformist and Centrist Left before the Victory of the Syrian Revolution
Chapter 8: The Reformist and Centrist Left after the Victory of the Syrian Revolution
Chapter 9: The Revolutionary Communists and the Syrian Revolution
Chapter 10: On the Perspective of the Syrian Revolution
Endnotes
Part 1
Introduction
In Syria, after more than 13 years, the political revolution won, and Bashar Assad, the butcher, ran away to Russia. Most of the left, whether they call themselves Communists or Trotskyists, opposed the revolution either because they are counter-revolutionary reformists or centrists who suffered from Islamophobia.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) does not intend to initiate a social revolution. It supports the capitalist system and the disarming of the people and the militias. It proposes forming one army to defend the capitalist system. Only the workers and poor peasants, led by a revolutionary party, can advance a social revolution. Yet it is a historical event that may lead to other revolutions.
But how can Marxists hail such a revolution led by reactionary Islamists say the reformists and the centrists? When the Communist International was still a revolutionary party and France joined Spain in attacking the Islamic Republic of the Rif, led by Abd El Karim, the French Communist Party defended the Rif.
“Abd el-Krim was not a mystical prophet waging jihad and wanting nothing to do with heretics, in the mold of Muhammed Ahmed ibn-Abdullah (otherwise known as “al-Mahdi”) in Sudan in 1880. Neither was he a pure Berber rogue competing for power. Although he was above all regarded as a local hero, he nevertheless sought to strengthen his international position by sending envoys to some European capitals, generally members of his close family, or by sending letters through foreign journalists and collaborators. He was considered as an example in the Muslim world. The Rif Republic was largely a State based on the tribal system, and a fairly strict form of Islam called Salafism that stands in opposition to Maraboutism and tribalism.” [i]
“When France joined Spain in its war against the Republic of the Rif in Morocco in 1925, the French communist movement launched a broad-based agitation campaign. This movement played on the themes of anti-militarism, anti-colonialism, and anti-imperialism, serving as an opportunity to show a united front between the Communist Party, the CGTU, and socialist and reformist organizations. It peaked with the general strike that started on 12 October 1925. This strike was the first large-scale application of the new principles of Bolshevization for the galaxy of communist organizations.” [ii]
“In France, a social-democrat coalition (Popular Front) led by Léon Blum came to power in May 1924, and in 1925, it signed an agreement with Spain regarding joint military action in Morocco. Only the French Communist Party (PCF) – initially accused by the Komintern of being ambiguous about colonial matters and supported by intellectuals, including the Surrealist “Clarté” group – organized mass protests against the war, particularly against the sending of troops to Morocco. At the end of 1924, the PCF also wrote “a pro-Rif manifesto” and sent a telegram of support to Abd el-Krim that would be read before the National Assembly”.[iii]
Trotsky, in a letter to the painter Diago Rivera, later wrote: “When Abdel-Krim rose up against France, the democrats and Social Democrats spoke with hate of the struggle of a “savage tyrant” against the “democracy.” Leon Blum’s party supported this point of view. But we, Marxists and Bolsheviks, considered the struggle of the Riffians against imperialist domination as a progressive war. Lenin wrote hundreds of pages demonstrating the primary necessity of distinguishing between imperialist nations and the colonial and semi-colonial nations, which comprise most of humanity. To speak of “revolutionary defeatism” in general, without distinguishing between exploiter and exploited countries, is to make a miserable caricature of Bolshevism and to put that caricature at the service of the imperialists.” [iv]
It is essential to know Trotsky’s theory and strategy of the Permanent Revolution to understand why only the working class, backed by the poor peasants, can complete the democratic revolution and move on to a socialist revolution.
Trotsky’s theory is the extension of Marx’s permanent revolution
The theory of the permanent revolution was first developed by Trotsky as early as 1904. The permanent revolution, while accepting that the objective tasks facing the Russian workers were those of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, nevertheless explained how, in a backward country in the epoch of imperialism, the “national bourgeoisie” was inseparably linked to the remains of feudalism on the one hand and to imperialist capital on the other and was therefore unable to carry through any of its historical tasks. It became the task of the working class that, after taking power, will continue to carry out the socialist tasks, and the tempo of achieving the socialist tasks depends on the tempo of the world revolution. Marx and Engels already observed the rottenness of the bourgeois liberals and their counterrevolutionary role in the bourgeois-democratic revolution. In his article The Bourgeoisie and the Counter-Revolution (1848), Marx writes:
“The German bourgeoisie has developed so slothfully, cravenly, and slowly that at the moment when it menacingly faced feudalism and absolutism, it saw itself menacingly faced by the proletariat and all factions of the burgers whose interests and ideas were akin to those of the proletariat. And it saw inimically arrayed not only a class behind it but all Europe before it. The Prussian bourgeoisie was not, as the French of 1789 had been, the class that represented the whole of modern society vis-a-vis the representatives of the old society, the monarchy, and the nobility. It had sunk to the level of a kind of social estate, as distinctly opposed to the crown as to the people, eager to be in opposition to both, irresolute against each of its opponents, taken severally, because it always saw both of them before or behind it; inclined to betray the people and compromise with the crowned representative of the old society because it already belonged to the old society.” [v]
Trotsky’s theory of the permanent revolution also deals with the perspective of the world revolution in contrast to Stalin’s socialism in one country. It also deals with the process after the working-class revolution. Trotsky summarized the theory and strategy of the permanent revolution:
“I hope that the reader will not object if, to end this book, I attempt, without fear of repetition, to formulate succinctly my principal conclusions.
1. The theory of the permanent revolution now demands the greatest attention from every Marxist, for the course of the class and ideological struggle has fully and finally raised this question from the realm of reminiscences over old differences of opinion among Russian Marxists, and converted it into a question of the character, the inner connexions and methods of the international revolution in general.
2. With regard to countries with a belated bourgeois development, especially the colonial and semi-colonial countries, the theory of the permanent revolution signifies that the complete and genuine solution of their tasks of achieving democracy and national emancipation is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat as the leader of the subjugated nation, above all of its peasant masses.
3. Not only the agrarian, but also the national question assigns to the peasantry – the overwhelming majority of the population in backward countries – an exceptional place in the democratic revolution. Without an alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry the tasks of the democratic revolution cannot be solved, nor even seriously posed. But the alliance of these two classes can be realized in no other way than through an irreconcilable struggle against the influence of the national-liberal bourgeoisie.
4. No matter what the first episodic stages of the revolution may be in the individual countries, the realization of the revolutionary alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry is conceivable only under the political leadership of the proletariat vanguard, organized in the Communist Party. This in turn means that the victory of the democratic revolution is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat which bases itself upon the alliance with the peasantry and solves first of all the tasks of the democratic revolution.
5. Assessed historically, the old slogan of Bolshevism – ’the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry’ – expressed precisely the above-characterized relationship of the proletariat, the peasantry and the liberal bourgeoisie. This has been confirmed by the experience of October. But Lenin’s old formula did not settle in advance the problem of what the reciprocal relations would be between the proletariat and the peasantry within the revolutionary bloc. In other words, the formula deliberately retained a certain algebraic quality, which had to make way for more precise arithmetical quantities in the process of historical experience. However, the latter showed, and under circumstances that exclude any kind of misinterpretation, that no matter how great the revolutionary role of the peasantry may be, it nevertheless cannot be an independent role and even less a leading one. The peasant follows either the worker or the bourgeois. This means that the ‘democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry’ is only conceivable as a dictatorship of the proletariat that leads the peasant masses behind it.
6. A democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, as a regime that is distinguished from the dictatorship of the proletariat by its class content, might be realized only in a case where an independent revolutionary party could be constituted, expressing the interests of the peasants and in general of petty bourgeois democracy – a party capable of conquering power with this or that degree of aid from the proletariat, and of determining its revolutionary programme. As all modern history attests – especially the Russian experience of the last twenty-five years – an insurmountable obstacle on the road to the creation of a peasants’ party is the petty-bourgeoisie’s lack of economic and political independence and its deep internal differentiation. By reason of this the upper sections of the petty-bourgeoisie (of the peasantry) go along with the big bourgeoisie in all decisive cases, especially in war and in revolution; the lower sections go along with the proletariat; the intermediate section being thus compelled to choose between the two extreme poles. Between Kerenskyism and the Bolshevik power, between the Kuomintang and the dictatorship of the proletariat, there is not and cannot be any intermediate stage, that is, no democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants.
7. The Comintern’ s endeavour to foist upon the Eastern countries the slogan of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, finally and long ago exhausted by history, can have only a reactionary effect. In so far as this slogan is counterposed to the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat, it contributes politically to the dissolution of the proletariat in the petty-bourgeois masses and thus creates the most favourable conditions for the hegemony of the national bourgeoisie and consequently for the collapse of the democratic revolution. The introduction of the slogan into the programme of the Comintern is a direct betrayal of Marxism and of the October tradition of Bolshevism.
8. The dictatorship of the proletariat which has risen to power as the leader of the democratic revolution is inevitably and very quickly confronted with tasks, the fulfillment of which is bound up with deep inroads into the rights of bourgeois property. The democratic revolution grows over directly into the socialist revolution and thereby becomes a permanent revolution.
9. The conquest of power by the proletariat does not complete the revolution, but only opens it. Socialist construction is conceivable only on the foundation of the class struggle, on a national and international scale. This struggle, under the conditions of an overwhelming predominance of capitalist relationships on the world arena, must inevitably lead to explosions, that is, internally to civil wars and externally to revolutionary wars. Therein lies the permanent character of the socialist revolution as such, regardless of whether it is a backward country that is involved, which only yesterday accomplished its democratic revolution, or an old capitalist country which already has behind it a long epoch of democracy and parliamentarism.
10. The completion of the socialist revolution within national limits is unthinkable. One of the basic reasons for the crisis in bourgeois society is the fact that the productive forces created by it can no longer be reconciled with the framework of the national state. From this follows on the one hand, imperialist wars, on the other, the utopia of a bourgeois United States of Europe. The socialist revolution begins on the national arena, it unfolds on the international arena, and is completed on the world arena. Thus, the socialist revolution becomes a permanent revolution in a newer and broader sense of the word; it attains completion, only in the final victory of the new society on our entire planet.
11. The above-outlined sketch of the development of the world revolution eliminates the question of countries that are ‘mature’ or ‘immature’ for socialism in the spirit of that pedantic, lifeless classification given by the present programme of the Comintern. Insofar as capitalism has created a world market, a world division of labour and world productive forces, it has also prepared the world economy as a whole for socialist transformation.
Different countries will go through this process at different tempos. Backward countries may, under certain conditions, arrive at the dictatorship of the proletariat sooner than advanced countries, but they will come later than the latter to socialism.
A backward colonial or semi-colonial country, the proletariat of which is insufficiently prepared to unite the peasantry and take power, is thereby incapable of bringing the democratic revolution to its conclusion. Contrariwise, in a country where the proletariat has power in its hands as the result of the democratic revolution, the subsequent fate of the dictatorship and socialism depends in the last analysis not only and not so much upon the national productive forces as upon the development of the international socialist revolution.
12. The theory of socialism in one country, which rose on the yeast of the reaction against October, is the only theory that consistently and to the very end opposes the theory of the permanent revolution.
The attempt of the epigones, under the lash of our criticism, to confine the application of the theory of socialism in one country exclusively to Russia, because of its specific characteristics (its vastness and its natural resources), does not improve matters but only makes them worse. The break with the internationalist position always and invariably leads to national messianism, that is, to attributing special superiorities and qualities to one’s own country, which allegedly permit it to play a role to which other countries cannot attain.
The world division of labour, the dependence of Soviet industry upon foreign technology, the dependence of the productive forces of the advanced countries of Europe upon Asiatic raw materials, etc., etc., make the construction of an independent socialist society in any single country in the world impossible.
13. The theory of Stalin and Bukharin, running counter to the entire experience of the Russian revolution, not only sets up the democratic revolution mechanically in contrast to the socialist revolution, but also makes a breach between the national revolution and the international revolution.
This theory imposes upon revolutions in backward countries the task of establishing an unrealizable regime of democratic dictatorship, which it counterposes to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thereby this theory introduces illusions and fictions into politics, paralyses the struggle for power of the proletariat in the East, and hampers the victory of the colonial revolution.
The very seizure of power by the proletariat signifies, from the standpoint of the epigones’ theory, the completion of the revolution (’to the extent of nine-tenths’, according to Stalin’s formula) and the opening of the epoch of national reforms. The theory of the kulak growing into socialism and the theory of the ‘neutralization’ of the world bourgeoisie are consequently inseparable from the theory of socialism in one country. They stand or fall together.
By the theory of national socialism, the Communist International is down-graded to an auxiliary weapon useful only for the struggle against military intervention. The present policy of the Comintern, its regime and the selection of its leading personnel correspond entirely to the demotion of the Communist International to the role of an auxiliary unit which is not destined to solve independent tasks.
14. The programme of the Comintern created by Bukharin is eclectic through and through. It makes the hopeless attempt to reconcile the theory of socialism in one country with Marxist internationalism, which is, however, inseparable from the permanent character of the world revolution. The struggle of the Communist Left Opposition for a correct policy and a healthy regime in the Communist International is inseparably bound up with the struggle for the Marxist programme. The question of the programme is in turn inseparable from the question of the two mutually exclusive theories: the theory of permanent revolution and the theory of socialism in one country. The problem of the permanent revolution has long ago outgrown the episodic differences of opinion between Lenin and Trotsky, which were completely exhausted by history. The struggle is between the basic ideas of Marx and Lenin on the one side and the eclecticism of the centrists on the other” [vi]
Thus, to complete the revolution in Syria, it must progress to a socialist revolution by the armed working class,
“Al-Shara (Golani), in his first reference to Israel on its occupations and the destruction it causes to weapons and military technology, said that the Syrian people are exhausted after years of war. Therefore, the current situation “does not allow entry into new conflicts.” [vii]
“He also added that “the priority at this stage is restoration and stability, and not to be drawn into conflicts that could lead to further destruction. The Israeli claims (for attacking Syria) have weakened and no longer justify its recent transgressions.“ [viii]
“He also added that the steps taken by Israel “threaten an unjustified escalation in the region.” In the meantime, the Syrian delegation to the UN filed a complaint against Israel last Friday for the intrusion into Syria and air force strikes against it. It is also in contact with the US. He speaks out of both sides of his mouth, and it is still too early to assess what the new regime’s reaction to Israel and Western imperialism will be, although there are very worrying signs.
It is possible that the Syrian people are not ready for war with Israel, which has considerable military superiority, and that in the future, there will be a military conflict between Syria and Israel in which we will support the rebels without giving them political support. There is a need to demand the new regime’s declarations of support for the Palestinian people.
In any case, the democratic revolution must be completed and the socialist revolution must be continued, and the rebel organizations are incapable of this. The first demand that must be raised is the organization of the working class and the poor peasants through a revolutionary constituent assembly and democratic organizations in every neighborhood of workers and peasants. The expropriation of significant capital. (enterprises, banks), under the democratic supervision of the working class, agrarian reforms for the benefit of the poor peasants must also be advanced.
Complete the democratic revolution – expel the imperialists, create a revolutionary constituent assembly!
Independent democratic organization of the armed workers and the poor peasants!” [ix]
Chapter 1: Syria before the French Occupation
Syria, located in the Middle East on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, is one of the oldest inhabited regions. Its civilization began with the simple settlements of the Neolithic seventh millennium B.C. It progressed to the tremendous Mesopotamian cultures after being conquered by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and Alexander the Great. With the fall of Rome, Syria became part of the Byzantines until the Arab Muslims conquered it, and Türkiye ruled it for 400 years, followed by French imperialism until 1946.
“Syria is divided into four topographical zones. To the west, along the eastern Mediterranean, is a narrow, fertile coastal plain. This coast is separated from inland Syria by low mountains that are parallel to the coast and extend south into Lebanon. The third and largest zone is a belt watered by the Euphrates, which flows from the northwest to the southeastern border with Iraq. The Taurus Mountains are the natural boundary between Syria and Türkiye. Outside the reaches of the rivers and irrigation, Syria is a desert. Thus, Syria has uneven and combined parts: agricultural, urban, and nomadic civilizations loosely integrated” [x]
The agricultural communities of ancient Syria were villages from the Neolithic period during the seventh and sixth millennia B.C. The time of the beginning of the agrarian revolution that was the foundation of classes. The Gods of this period were generally closely linked with natural phenomena that regulated agriculture. Dagan in the east and Resheph and Baal in the west were storm and weather Gods whose anger could destroy agricultural production and were treated with the utmost respect. The same Gods were worshiped in the urban centers and city-states of the third and second millennia but became more commercially oriented.
It is of interest that the God Baal was also the God of the Canaanites and the Hebrews:
“Baal was the god worshiped in many ancient Middle Eastern communities, especially among the Canaanites, who apparently considered him a fertility deity and one of the most important gods in the pantheon. As a Semitic common noun, baal (Hebrew baʿal) meant “owner” or “lord,” although it could be used more generally; for example, a baal of wings was a winged creature, and, in the plural, baalim of arrows indicated archers. Yet such fluidity in using the term baal did not prevent it from being attached to a god of distinct character. As such, Baal designated the universal god of fertility, and in that capacity, his title was Prince, Lord of the Earth.” [xi]
“The tremendous Syrian cities of the Bronze Age achieved a high degree of civilization. The most advanced were discovered in Mari and Ebla, city-states’ capitals. The Mari Palace contained at least 300 rooms, courts, and several stories.
Excavations have recovered extensive cuneiform archives kept by scribes who wrote official correspondence between rulers to careful inventories of all products manufactured, imported, and exported under their supervision. The accounts described metals – gold, silver, copper, and tin – shipped from distant places, of woven textiles and jewelry from specialized craftsmen.” [xii]
Just as Mari and Ebla prospered from their locations on an overland commercial route, Ugarit on the Mediterranean coast profited from its maritime trade in luxury finished commodities for export to Egypt and the Aegean. As early as the second millennium B.C., the craftsmen of Ugarit (today Ras Shamra) were known for their skills that would be maintained in later periods (thus Solomon requested from Hiram of Tyre, south of Ugarit, a specialist in these arts, for the decoration of the Temple in Jerusalem. Buyers were not only from Jerusalem but also the capitals of the Assyrian kings in northern Iraq.
The Babylonian Empire that ruled North Assyria ruled occupied North Syria:
“Under the rule of the Amorites, which lasted until about 1600 BC, Babylon became the political and commercial center of the Tigris-Euphrates area, and Babylonia became a great empire, encompassing all of southern Mesopotamia and part of Assyria to the north. The ruler largely responsible for this rise to power was Hammurabi (c. 1792–1750 BC), the sixth king of the 1st dynasty of Babylon,” [xiii]
The Assyrian Empire occupied North Syria:
“Assyria was a dependency of Babylonia and later of the Mitanni kingdom during most of the 2nd millennium BC. It emerged as an independent state in the 14th century BC, and in the subsequent period, it became a major power in Mesopotamia, Armenia, and sometimes in northern Syria. Assyrian power declined after the death of Tukulti-Ninurta I (. 1208 BC). It was restored briefly in the 11th century BC by Tiglath-pileser I. Still, during the following period, both Assyria and its rivals were preoccupied with the incursions of the semi nomadic Aramaeans. The Assyrian kings began a new period of expansion in the 9th century BC. From the mid-8th to the late 7th century BC, a series of strong Assyrian kings—among them Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon—united most of the Middle East, from Egypt to the Persian Gulf, under Assyrian rule. The last great Assyrian ruler was Ashurbanipal.” [xiv]
During the Hellenistic period, Syria went through many wars:
“Syrian Wars, (3rd century BC), five conflicts fought between the leading Hellenistic states, chiefly the Seleucid kingdom and Ptolemaic Egypt, and, in a lesser way, Macedonia.
Seleucus, one of Alexander’s leading generals, became satrap (governor) of Babylonia in 321, two years after the death of Alexander. In the prolonged power struggle between the former generals of Alexander for control of the disintegrating empire, Seleucus sided with Ptolemy I of Egypt against Antigonus I, Alexander’s successor on the Macedonian throne, who had forced Seleucus out of Babylonia. In 312, Seleucus defeated Demetrius at Gaza using troops supplied by Ptolemy, and with a smaller force, he seized Babylonia that same year, thereby founding the Seleucid kingdom, or empire. By 305, having consolidated his power over the kingdom, he began gradually to extend his domain eastward to the Indus River and westward to Syria and Anatolia, where he decisively defeated Antigonus at Ipsus in 301. In 281 he annexed the Thracian Chersonesus. That same year, he was assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus, the disgruntled son of Ptolemy I.
Seleucus was succeeded by his eldest son, Antiochus I Soter, who reigned until 261 and was followed by Antiochus II (reigned 261–246), Seleucus II (246–225), Seleucus III (225–223), and Antiochus III the Great (223–187), whose reign was marked by sweeping administrative reforms in which many of the features of the ancient Persian imperial administration, adopted initially by Alexander, were modernized to eliminate a dual power structure strained by rivalry between military and political figures. The empire was administered by provincial stratēgoi, who combined military and civil power. Administrative centers were located at Sardi’s in the west and at Seleucia on the Tigris in the east. The Seleucids exerted enormous political, economic, and cultural power throughout the Middle East by controlling Anatolia and its Greek cities. Their control over the strategic Taurus Mountain passes between Anatolia and Syria and the Hellespont between Thrace and Anatolia allowed them to dominate commerce and trade in the region. Seleucid settlements in Syria, primarily Antioch, were regional centers by which the Seleucid empire projected its military, economic, and cultural influence.” [xv]
“The complex and devious diplomacy surrounding the wars was characteristic of the Hellenistic monarchies. The main issue in dispute between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies was control of southern Syria. In the First War (274–271) Ptolemy II wrested Phoenicia on the northern Syrian coast, most of Anatolia, and the Cyclades Islands from the Seleucids. In the Second War (c. 260–255/253) the Seleucid king Antiochus II, aided by Antigonus Gonatus of Macedonia, initiated a largely successful campaign to regain Phoenicia and Anatolia.
The Third, or Laodicean, War (c. 245–241) was begun by Ptolemy III to enforce earlier diplomatic arrangements disadvantageous to Seleucus II, son and successor of Antiochus II. Seleucus had to concede territory in Anatolia to the rulers of Cappadocia and Pontus to consolidate his position. By the peace terms Ptolemy kept Seleucia Pieria in Syria and several coastal areas in Thrace.
In 236 Seleucus was forced to cede his Anatolian possessions to his brother Antiochus Hierax in the so-called War of the Brothers. Antiochus in turn lost them to the Anatolian ruler Attalus I of Pergamum. By this time, the former eastern Seleucid provinces, Bactria and Parthia, were also in the hands of independent rulers. By 221, Antiochus III began to implement a policy of restoring Seleucid power, largely successful except for an abortive attack on Egypt. In the Fourth War (219–217), which he initiated, Antiochus had to concede Coele Syria (southern Syria and Palestine) to Ptolemy IV, whose victory at Raphia in Palestine, however, was clouded by revolts in Egypt. The Fifth War (202–200) climaxed a renewed and permanently successful Seleucid effort to wrest Coele Syria from the Ptolemies. Antiochus’ subsequent Hellenizing policy in Judaea led to rebellion and independence for Judaea in 142. Weakened by constant warfare, the Hellenistic states fell under Roman control in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.” [xvi]
Syria became a Roman province in the first century BC:
“The tale of Syria’s conquest is marked by the military and diplomatic ingenuity of Pompey the Great. In 64 BC, amidst the backdrop of the Third Mithridatic War, Pompey capitalized on the weakened state of the Seleucid Empire, which was embroiled in internal and external conflicts. Through a combination of forceful military campaigns and shrewd diplomacy, he quickly subdued the region, annexing it to the Roman Republic. This expanded Roman territorial boundaries and established Syria as an essential eastern province.” [xvii]
When the Byzantine Empire fell, Syria was occupied by the Muslim Arabs.
“Syria passed from the Byzantine to Islamic rule in the mid-seventh century CE as the advancing Arab armies took control of the region after the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 VR. Social and religious change was slow in the early periods of Umayyad and Abbasid rule. Still, the arrival of Islam in the 630s CE saw the city of Damascus rise to prominence as the capital of the newly formed caliphate. And by the eighth century, Damascus, along with Baghdad to the east and Cordoba to the west, became one of the most powerful socio-political centers of the Islamic world.” [xviii]
The early Umayyad period was one of strength and expansion. The army, mainly Arab and largely Syrian, extended the frontiers of Islam. It carried the war against Byzantium into Asia Minor and besieged Constantinople; eastward, it penetrated Khorasan, Turkistan, and northwestern India; and, spreading along the northern coast of Africa, it occupied much of Spain. This vast empire was given a regular administration that gradually acquired an Arab-Muslim character. Syrians played an important part in it, and the country profited from the wealth pouring from the rich provinces to the empire’s center. The caliphs built splendid palaces and the first great monuments of Muslim religious architecture: the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Great Mosque of Damascus, constructed by the Umayyads. The religious sciences of Islam began to develop while Christian culture still flourished. Except under ʿUmar II, Christians were treated with favor, and there were Christian officials at court.” [xix]
Later on, Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, replaced Damascus as center of science and culture:
“Baghdad, modern Iraq’s capital, exemplifies human creativity, perseverance, and cultural richness. During the Abbasid Caliphate, 750-1258 CE, this city became a beacon of intellectual and scientific progress, gaining the name “City of Light. Caliph al-Mansur founded Baghdad in 762 CE, and it was ideally located along major trade routes, resulting in a melting pot of cultures and ideas. Its circular form, with the caliphal palace and mosque in the center, represented the Abbasid Empire’s function as both a political and spiritual hub, spanning North Africa and Central Asia” [xx]
At the beginning of the 16th century Syria was occupied by the Turks.
“Throughout the 15th century, Mamluk Syria continued to decline while a new power, the Ottoman Turkish sultanate in Asia Minor, was growing to the north. Having occupied Constantinople and the Balkans, it began to look southward. In 1516, Sultan Selim I defeated the Mamluks in the Battle of Marj Dābiq and occupied the whole of Syria that year and Egypt the next. Although parts of Syria enjoyed some local autonomy, the area as a whole remained for 400 years an integral section of the Ottoman Empire. It was divided into provinces, each under a governor: Damascus, Aleppo, and later Tripoli and Ṣaydā, or Sidon, of which the administrative center was later moved to Acre. Damascus, the largest, had special importance as the place from which the pilgrimage to Mecca was organized every year. The governor of Damascus led the pilgrimage when possible, and most of the revenues of the province were earmarked for its expenses.” [xxi]
Chapter 2: The Sykes-Picot Agreement
An Al Jazeera article says: “The Ottoman Empire (1516-1924) lost control over many of its territories to the growing powers of colonial countries in the last few decades before its collapse. France took control of Algeria (1830) and Tunisia (1881), Italy took over Libya (1911), while Britain gained control of the Aden protectorate (1939), Oman (1861), Arabian Gulf chiefdoms (1820), and Kuwait (1899). Egypt fell into British custody in 1882. Sudan also fell under British control in 1899.
As World War I erupted in July 1914, the weakening Ottoman Empire allied with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire to confront Britain and France. Then, the political regimes and the region’s maps began to transform.
Mark Sykes was an English political adviser, diplomat, politician, military man, and traveler. He represented his country in secret talks with France and Russia to partition the territories of the Ottoman Empire in the Arab Orient and Anatolia.Sykes signed what became known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement. In 1915, upon Sykes’ recommendation, the Arab Bureau was established. The entity served as a British intelligence bureau in Egypt and was tasked with controlling political activities in the Near East. It has revived the old names of Ottoman-administered regions, such as “Palestine,” “Syria,” and “Iraq.”
Francois Georges-Picot (1870-1951) was a French diplomat and the son of historian Georges Picot. He negotiated the secret Sykes-Picot agreement with Sykes. Picot had worked at the Court of Appeal in Paris for two years before joining the diplomatic circuit in 1896. Picot served as secretary to the Ambassador in Copenhagen before being appointed Consul-General in Beirut shortly before World War I. In Beirut, Picot established strong relationships with the Maronite Christian leaders, then moved to Cairo before returning to Paris in 1915. As a member of the French Colonial Party, he defended Arab orientalists who supported the French mandate in their own countries. Between 1917 and 1919, Picot held the position of a high commissioner in Palestine and Syria and, in that capacity, recommended the deployment of 20,000 French soldiers, paving the way for General Henri Gouraud’s arrival to command the French army in the Levant. This agreement was a betrayal of British promises to the Arabs.
Britain was the most powerful party among those countries. At the same time, it was in contact with the Emir and Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali, who had been plotting a revolution to establish an Arab kingdom in the region.
On May 16, 1916, Sykes and Picot secretly signed a deal that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Sazonov approved.
The deal called for the establishment of five entities in the Levant:
“The first entity extended from Baghdad to the south to include Kuwait, reaching to the Gulf coast. This entity was under the direct control of the British.
The second entity combined what is today northern Iraq, Jordan, and the Negev desert, reaching Sinai. This part was under British influence.
The third entity included a coastal area that extended from southern Lebanon to the north towards the provinces of Mersin, Iskenderun and Adana. It extended anteriorly to the inside of Anatolia. This part was under direct French control.
The fourth entity comprised the Syrian Desert. This part was under French influence.
The fifth entity included the Ottoman Jerusalem sanjak, the northern part of historic Palestine. Due to its religious significance, this part was an international zone. Britain was, however, allocated control of Acre and Haifa.
The agreement regarding Russia stated that Russia’s tsar would keep his stake in Istanbul, the territories adjacent to the Bosphorus strait, and four provinces near the Russian borders in east Anatolia. Greece was allocated control of Türkiye’s western coasts, and Italy was given control of Türkiye’s southwest.
When Russian Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown in a popular revolution in 1917, the Bolshevik communists, led by Vladimir Lenin, found and published a copy of the Sykes-Picot agreement in the government’s archive records.
Britain, during its negotiations with Sharif of Mecca Hussein bin Ali, took up the responsibility of establishing “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. This was stated in a letter written on November 2, 1917, by the then British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, to Baron Walter Rothschild, a close friend of Zionist movement leader Chaim Weizmann.
The British commitment was endorsed in 1920 when Herbert Samuel, a British Jewish Zionist, arrived in Palestine as Britain’s first high commissioner. That year, the League of Nations formalized the British mandate of Palestine in a unique article in its legislation.” [xxii]
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was a betrayal of the British promises to the Arabs. The Institute for Curriculum Services writes:
“To understand the Arab-Israeli conflict, it’s essential to consider the various broken promises that the British made to Arabs as they tried to secure allies in the Middle East during World War I. These agreements set the stage for the “broken promises” that contributed to conflicts, especially between Jews and Arabs.
The Allied Powers had strategic interests in the Middle East. They were concerned that the Central Powers would advance further into the Ottoman Empire and take control of areas with important natural resources, such as oil, or march south toward Egypt to take control of the Suez Canal. Also, Greater Syria was strategically important to the Allied Forces because of its geographic location as a land bridge connecting Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Looking for allies to help them fight, the British reached out to the Arabs, who felt mistreated by the Ottomans. In 1915, Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, exchanged letters with Sheik Sharif Hussein, the Emir of Mecca (known today as the “Hussein-McMahon Correspondence”). In these letters, McMahon promised the Arabs independence in return for their support in fighting the Ottomans. After some discussion, Hussein accepted McMahon’s promise of Arab independence.
As the war dragged on, with massive casualties and loss of life, the British looked for new allies to join the fight and decided to reach out to the Jews in Greater Syria. In 1917, the British Foreign Minister, Arthur Balfour, wrote a letter to representatives of the Jewish Zionist movement – Lord Rothschild and Chaim Weizmann – promising to create a Jewish national home in the ancient Jewish homeland in exchange for Jewish support of the war effort (known today as the “Balfour Declaration”).
What the British failed to mention to both the Jews and the Arabs of the region was the secret deal they made with France on May 9, 1916 – known as the “Sykes-Picot Agreement.” [xxiii]
Below is a Letter from Sir Henry McMahon to Sharif Hussein Oct 24th, 1915:
“I have received your letter of the 29th Shawal, 1333, with much pleasure and your expressions of friendliness and sincerity have given me the greatest satisfaction.
I regret that you should have received from my last letter the impression that I regarded the question of the limits and boundaries with coldness and hesitation; such was not the case, but it appeared to me that the time had not yet come when that question could be discussed conclusively.
I have realized, however, from your last letter that you regard this question as vital and urgent. I have, therefore, lost no time in informing the Government of Great Britain of the contents of your letter, and it is with great pleasure that I communicate to you on their behalf the following statement, which I am confident you will receive with satisfaction: –
The two districts of Mersina and Alexandretta and portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo cannot be said to be purely Arab, and should be excluded from the limits demanded.
We accept those limits with the above modification, without prejudice to our existing treaties with Arab chiefs.
As for those regions lying within those frontiers wherein Great Britain is free to act without detriment to the interest of her ally, France, I am empowered in the name of the Government of Great Britain to give the following assurances and make the following reply to your letter:
1. Subject to the above modifications, Great Britain is prepared to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs in all the regions within the limits demanded by the Sherif of Mecca.
2. Great Britain will guarantee the Holy Places against all external aggression and will recognize their inviolability.
3. When the situation admits, Great Britain will give to the Arabs her advice and will assist them to establish what may appear to be the most suitable forms of government in those various territories.
4. On the other hand, it is understood that the Arabs have decided to seek the advice and guidance of Great Britain only and that such European advisers and officials as may be required to form a sound form of administration will be British.
5. With regard to the vilayets of Baghdad and Basra, the Arabs will recognise that the established position and interests of Great Britain necessitate special administrative arrangements in order to secure these territories from foreign aggression, to promote the welfare of the local populations and to safeguard our mutual economic interests.
I am convinced that this declaration will assure you beyond all possible doubt of the sympathy of Great Britain towards the aspirations of her friends the Arabs and will result in a firm and lasting alliance, the immediate results of which will be the expulsion of the Turks from the Arab countries and the freeing of the Arab peoples from the Turkish yoke, which for so many years has pressed heavily upon them.
I have confined myself in this letter to the more vital and important questions, and if there are any other matters dealt with in your letter which I have omitted to mention, we may discuss them at some convenient date in the future.
It was with very great relief and satisfaction that I heard of the safe arrival of the Holy Carpet and the accompanying offerings which, thanks to the clearness of your directions and the excellence of your arrangements, were landed without trouble or mishap in spite of the dangers and difficulties occasioned by the present sad war. May God soon bring lasting peace and freedom to all peoples!
I am sending this letter by the hand of your trusted and excellent messenger, Sheikh Mohammed Ibn Arif Ibn Uraifan. He will inform you of the various matters of interest but of less vital importance that I have not mentioned in this letter.
Compliments
(Signed) A. H. McMahon.” [xxiv]
Part 2
Chapter 3: Arab Nationalism
“The Arab uprisings briefly resurrected the idea of Arab nationalism. During the 2011 Pan Arab Games in Qatar, spectators sang the unofficial Arab national anthem, the lyrics of which promote the idea that Arabs cannot be separated by artificial borders or religion because the Arabic language unites them all. But the euphoria of the moment soon dissipated as the reality of factionalism set in. Despite various attempts at unity, Arab nations have repeatedly failed to act collectively or agree on common interests” [xxv]
“The first Arab nationalist movement was launched in Beirut in 1857. The Syrian Scientific Society ushered in a short-lived Arab cultural and intellectual renaissance. Failing to attract a broad audience, it fizzled out as the First World War began. It was essentially an elitist organization of primarily Syrian and Lebanese Christians and a few Americans and Britons living in the area. (Secular Arab nationalism appealed to Christians because they could be integrated as full-fledged citizens.) Decades later, the Young Arab Society was established in Paris in response to the 1908 Young Turks’ coup against Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid. The group demanded a democratic transition, administrative autonomy for Arabs, and the designation of Arabic as an official language on par with Turkish” [xxvi]
“The repressive policies of the Ottoman military governor of Syria led the Young Arabs to demand independence for the Arab provinces in West Asia, paving the way for the British-backed Great Arab Revolt in 1916. The world order that emerged after the First World War gave rise to the present-day states of the Arab East, while the independent countries of North Africa emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War. Western imperial countries created the Arab states in their current format to ensure their continued fragility and dependence on the West for their security.
Arab identity is not an ethnic marker. It emerged during the Abbasid caliphate as a political dividing line between Arab caliphs and their Persian subjects in the ninth century. To be considered an Arab, it was sufficient to claim to be one and speak Arabic. Arab nationalism was mostly limited to pride in the community’s achievements, especially the spread of Islam and the Arabic language outside the Arabian Peninsula. Arab regimes’ obsession with staying in power prevented them from cooperating, ensuring that state nationalism superseded pan-Arabism.”
The ideology that Arabs are united was introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century. Sati al-Husary, Iraq’s minister of education during King Faisal I’s reign, promoted the concept. His conceptualization of Arab nationalism remained mostly a sentimental attachment to religion and language but didn’t include the economic or political spheres.
Two organizations were important for promoting Arab Nationalism in opposition to the Ottoman Empire. The two were the Young Arab Society (al-Fatvt) and the Covenant Society (a/l-Ahd). However, they did not have mass support. When the Ottoman government entered the war in October 1914, some Arab nationalists began to negotiate with the Sherif of Mecca, al-Husayn ibn-‘Ali, a national revolt led by him with the support of the British. He formed an army led by his son Faysal that occupied Damascus. At the same time, British forces Marched from the Persian Gulf to defeat the Turks in Iraq and occupy it.” [xxvii]
In 1919, the Arab nationalists held a congress that rejected the mandate over Syria and Palestine and promoted the following resolutions:
“We the undersigned members of the Syrian General Congress, meeting in Damascus on Wednesday, July 2nd, 1919, made up of representatives from the three Zones, viz., the Southern, Eastern, and Western, provided with credentials and authorizations by the inhabitants of our various districts, Moslems, Christians, and Jews, have agreed upon the following statement of the desires of the people of the country who have elected us to present them to the American Section of the International Commission; a very large majority passed the fifth article; all the other articles were accepted unanimously.
1. We ask absolutely complete political independence for Syria within these boundaries: The Taurus System on the North; Rafah and a line running from Al Jauf to the south of the Syrian and the Hejazian line to Akaba on the south; the Euphrates and Khabur Rivers and a line extending east of Abu Kamal to the east of Al Jauf on the east; and the Mediterranean on the west.
2. We ask that the Government of this Syrian country should be a democratic civil constitutional Monarchy on broad decentralization principles, safeguarding the rights of minorities, and that the King be the Emir Feisal, who carried on a glorious struggle in the cause of our liberation and merited our full confidence and entire reliance.
3. Considering the fact that the Arabs inhabiting the Syrian area are not naturally less gifted than other more advanced races and that they are by no means less developed than the Bulgarians, Serbians, Greeks, and Roumanians at the beginning of their independence, we protest against Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, placing us among the nations in their middle stage of development which stand in need of a mandatory power.
4. In the event of the rejection by the Peace Conference of this just protest for certain considerations that we may not understand, we, relying on the declarations of President Wilson that his object in waging war was to put an end to the ambition of conquest and colonization, can only regard the mandate mentioned in the Covenant of the League of Nations as equivalent to the rendering of economical and technical assistance that does not prejudice our complete independence. And desiring that our country should not fall prey to colonization and believing that the American Nation is farthest from any thought of colonization and has no political ambition in our country, we will seek the technical and economical assistance from the United States of America, provided that such assistance does not exceed 20 years.
5. In the event of America not finding herself in a position to accept our desire for assistance, we will seek this assistance from Great Britain, also provided that such assistance does not infringe the complete independence and unity of our country and that the duration of such assistance does not exceed that mentioned in the previous article.
6. We do not acknowledge any right claimed by the French Government in any part whatever of our Syrian country and refuse that she should assist us or have a hand in our country under any circumstances and in any place.
7. We oppose the pretensions of the Zionists to create a Jewish commonwealth in the southern part of Syria, known as Palestine, and oppose Zionist migration to any part of our country; for we do not acknowledge their title but consider them a grave peril to our people from the national, economical, and political points of view. Our Jewish compatriots shall enjoy our common rights and assume the common responsibilities.
8. We ask that there should be no separation of the southern part of Syria known as Palestine, nor of the littoral western zone, which includes Lebanon, from the Syrian country. We desire that the unity of the country should be guaranteed against partition under whatever circumstances.
9. We ask for complete independence for emancipated Mesopotamia and that the two countries should have no economic barriers.
10. The fundamental principles laid down by President Wilson in condemnation of secret treaties impel us to protest most emphatically against any treaty that stipulates the partition of our Syria country and against any private engagement aiming at the establishment of Zionism in the southern part of Syria; therefore we ask the complete annulment of these conventions and agreements.
The noble principles enunciated by President Wilson strengthen our confidence that our desires emanating from the depths of our hearts, shall be the decisive factor in determining our future; and that President Wilson and the free American people will be our supporters for the realization of our hopes, thereby proving their sincerity and noble sympathy with the aspiration of the weaker nations in general and our Arab people in particular.
We also have the fullest confidence that the Peace Conference will realize that we would not have risen against the Turks, with whom we had participated in all civil, political, and representative privileges, but for their violation of our national rights, and so will grant us our desires in full in order that our political rights may not be less after the war than they were before, since we have shed so much blood in the cause of our liberty and independence.
We request to be allowed to send a delegation to represent us at the Peace Conference to defend our rights and secure the realization of our aspirations” [xxviii]
In 1920, Faisal established the Arab Kingdom of Syria. A few months later, a French Army – including Moroccan cavalry and two Algerian battalions – defeated the weak Syrian force in the Battle of Maysaloun near Damascus, claiming Syria as a French mandate. After all, France had a gentlemen’s agreement with British imperialism, and the Arabs were not members of the Gentlemen’s Club of Rubbers.
“Arab local rulers, to win popular support, promoted Sunni orthodoxy instead of treating faith as a private matter, which alienated other Muslim sects and Christians. For example, Egyptian Vice President Hussein el-Shafei, who served under President Gamal Abdel Nasser, tried to attract Egypt’s Coptic Christians to Islam. In the 1970s, Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi urged Lebanese Maronite Christians to embrace Islam to end the civil war. In Sudan, President Jaafar Numeiri transformed from a secular Arab nationalist to a religious zealot, introducing sharia throughout the country, including in the non-Islamic southern region.
While unifying the region is necessary, it cannot be achieved by religious dogma or by secular nationalism. The history of the failure of this attempt was proven under Gamal Abdul Naser. Factionalism and self-interest blocked any attempts at genuine unity between Egypt and Syria. The Gulf Cooperation Council was created in 1981 by six Arab nations – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman – ostensibly to integrate their economies and defense capabilities. But the group failed to achieve its objectives, and relations among the member states were marred by conflict. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are still entangled in ongoing border issues. And in 2017, three of the member states (plus Egypt) imposed a three-year blockade of Qatar.
The attempt to unite the Arab Maghreb – an alliance among Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, and Libya – appeared in 1956 after Tunisia and Morocco won independence from France. But this, too, failed. Morocco’s invasion of Algerian-held territory in 1963 started the Sand War, which permanently soured relations between the two countries. Their dispute over Western Sahara further deepened hostility. The five countries held their first summit in 1988, but the heads of state have not met since Algeria closed its border with Morocco in 1994. The AMU wrote 30 multilateral agreements, but only five have been ratified
The 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement divided the region into French and British mandates that carved states without considering their ethnic composition and inflamed sectarianism. “Awakening of the Arab Nation,” a book written in 1905 by Maronite Christian Naguib Azoury, predicted a clash between Arab nationalism and Zionism – which would not end until one of the two movements defeated the other. Azoury’s prediction was proven in 1967 when the Six-Day War destroyed all hope for a pan-Arab nation. The defeat allowed ethnic and religious minorities in the Arab region, which had to articulate specific demands for autonomy. They became militarized and presented their demands in Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, and beyond.” [xxix]
The nationalists’ failure to forge a united Arab formation gave rise to the Communist parties and other leftist organizations like the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine. However, the Communist parties degenerated under Stalin. Their support for Israel in 1948 and, later on, their support for the secular Arab rulers in Egypt and Syria made them and Marxism unpopular and reopened the door for the Islamists, especially when only in the Mosques could people meet and exchange ideas.
Chapter 4: The Struggle against colonialist France in Syria (1919-46)
The League of Nations, according to Lenin, was a unification “on paper only; in reality, it is a group of beasts of prey, who only fight one another and do not at all trust one another.” [xxx] France’s rule over Syria was achieved through an agreement with Britain and the approval of the League of Nations., but the Syrians resisted. The French Army divided and repressed them and later dissolved its division of Syria into a few states. At the same time, it separated Lebanon and Palestine from Syria.
With the defeat of Ottomans in Syria, British troops under General Sir Edmund Allenby entered Damascus in 1918, accompanied by soldiers of the Arab Revolt led by Faisal, son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca.
The new Arab administration formed local governments in the central Syrian cities, and the pan-Arab flag was raised all over Syria. With faith in earlier British promises, the Arabs hoped the new state would include all the Arab lands stretching from Aleppo in northern Syria to Aden in southern Yemen.
However, by the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France, General Allenby assigned the Arab administration only the interior regions of Syria (the eastern zone). On October 8, French troops disembarked in Beirut and occupied the Lebanese coastal region south of Naqoura (the western zone), replacing British forces there. The French immediately dissolved the local Arab governments in the region
When first arriving in Lebanon, the Christian community received the French as liberators. However, as they entered Syria, they were faced with strong resistance. Under French colonialism, the region was subdivided into six states: Damascus (1920), Aleppo (1920), Alawites (1920), Jabal Druze (1921), the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta (1921, modern-day Hatay), and the State of Greater Lebanon (1920), which became later the modern country of Lebanon.
The drawing of those states was based on Syria’s Ottoman sectarian policy of divide and rule. However, nearly all the Syrian sects were hostile to the French mandate and the division it created, and there were numerous revolts in all of the Syrian states. Maronite Christians of Mount Lebanon, on the other hand, supported French colonization, and Greater Lebanon was the exception to the newly hostile formed states.
“The French focused on fragmenting the various groups in the region so the local population would not be able to form a larger nationalist movement to dispose of colonial rule. In addition, the administration of colonial governments was heavily dominated by the French. Local authorities were given very little power and did not have the authority to decide policy independently. French officials could quickly overrule local leaders’ small amount of power. The French did everything possible to prevent people in the Levant from developing self-sufficient governing bodies. In 1930, France extended its constitution to Syria” [xxxi]
“Uprising Unrest erupted in Syria when Faisal accepted a compromise with French Prime Minister Clemenceau and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann over Jewish immigration to Palestine. Anti-Hashemite demonstrations broke out and Muslim inhabitants in and around Mount Lebanon revolted with fear of being incorporated into a new, mainly Christian state of Greater Lebanon. Part of France’s claim to these territories in the Levant was that France was a protector of the minority Christian communities.
On April 25, 1920, the supreme inter-Allied council formulating the Treaty of Sèvres granted France the mandate of Syria (including Lebanon) and Britain the Mandate of Palestine (including Jordan) and Iraq. Syrians reacted with violent demonstrations, and a new government headed by Ali Rida al-Rikabi was formed on May 9, 1920. The new government decided to organize general conscription and began forming an army.
On July 14, 1920, General Gouraud issued an ultimatum to Faisal, giving him the choice between submission or abdication. Realizing that the power balance was not in his favor, Faisal chose to cooperate. However, the young minister of war, Youssef al-Azmeh, refused to comply. This led to the Franco-Syrian War when Syrian troops under al-Azmeh met French forces under General Mariano Goybet at the Battle of Maysaloun. The French won the battle in less than a day. Azmeh died as a hero on the battlefield along with many of the Syrian troops. Goybet entered Damascus on July 24, 1920.” [xxxii]
With the fall of France in 1940 during World War II, Syria was ruled by the Vichy Government until the British and Free French invaded and occupied the country in July 1941. Syria proclaimed its independence again in 1941, but it wasn’t until January 1946 that it was recognized as an independent republic.
“However, on September 27, 1941, France proclaimed the independence and sovereignty of the Syrian state by virtue of and within the framework of the Mandate. The proclamation said, “The independence and sovereignty of Syria and Lebanon will not affect the juridical situation as it results from the Mandate Act.” In simple words, independence was a fiction. Syria became independent only in April 1946 when France was forced to evacuate the last of its troops in April 1946, leaving the country in the hands of a republican government that was formed during the mandate” [xxxiii]
The rest of this chapter is based on a publication of the University of Central Arkansas. It describes the revolts and France’s repression of them.
“Crisis Phase (July 2, 1919-July 17, 1925): Syrian nationalists, meeting in Damascus on July 2, 1919, called for the independence of the Syrian territory from France. French troops took control of the Syrian territory on September 15, 1919, and General Henri Gouraud was named French High Commissioner for on October 9, 1919. Syrian nationalists rebelled against the French government beginning in December 1919. Syrian nationalists declared Syria’s independence on March 8, 1920, and proclaimed Faisal Hussein as King of Syria on March 11, 1920. During the San Remo Conference held in San Remo, Italy on April 19-26, 1920, the Supreme Council of Allied Powers (SCAP) assigned a mandate over the Syrian territory to the French government. On July 14, 1920, General Henri Gouraud issued a surrender ultimatum to King Faisal Hussein, who shortly surrendered to French authorities. French troops took control of the city of Aleppo on July 23, 1920. French troops commanded by General Mariano Goybet clashed with Syrian rebels commanded by Yusuf al-‘Azma near the town of Maysalun on July 23-24, 1920, resulting in the deaths of some 400 Syrian rebels and 42 French soldiers. French troops took control of the city of Damascus on July 25, 1920. King Faisal Hussein formally relinquished the throne of Syria on July 25, 1920. France established the states of Damascus and Aleppo, along with the autonomous Alawite territory, within the French Mandate of Syria on December 1, 1920. France established the autonomous Druze territory in the southern part of the state of Damascus on May 1, 1921. French troops suppressed a rebellion in the Alawite state led by Shaykh Saleh al-Ali on June 15, 1921. On March 4, 1922, the French government transformed the autonomous Druze territory into the Souaida state (Jabal Druze state). Government police suppressed Syrian nationalist demonstrations in Damascus on April 8-12, 1922, resulting in the deaths of three individuals. France established the Syrian Federation on July 1, 1922, comprising the Damascus state, Aleppo state, and autonomous Alawite territory. Subhi Bay Barakat al-Khalidi was elected president of the Syrian Federation. The League of Nations (LoN) Council formally approved the French Mandate of Syria on July 24, 1922. General Maxime Weygand was named French High Commissioner for Syria on April 19, 1923. The League of Nations Mandate of Syria and Lebanon under French Administration formally entered into force on September 23, 1923. General Maurice Sarrail was named French High Commissioner for Syria on November 29, 1924. The French government dissolved the Syrian Federation, and combined the states of Damascus and Aleppo to form the State of Syrian on January 1, 1925. The People’s Party (Hizb al-sha’b), a Syrian nationalist group headed by Abd al-Rahman Shahbandar and Faris al-Khuri, was formally established on June 5, 1925. On July 11, 1925, government police arrested three Druze sheikhs in Damascas and imprisoned the sheikhs in Palmyra in central Syria.
Conflict Phase (July 18, 1925-June 1, 1927): Druze tribesmen led by Sultan Pasha el-Attrash rebelled against the French government in the Souaida state beginning on July 18, 1925, and Druze rebels took control of the town of Salkhad on July 20, 1925. Druze rebels ambushed some 160 French-led troops commanded by Captain Gabriel Normand near Al-Kafr (Kafer) on July 21, 1925, resulting in the deaths of some 115 French soldiers. Some 500 Druze rebels and Bedouin tribesmen commanded by Sultan al-Atrash attacked French government troops near the town of Al-Mazra’a on August 2-3, 1925, resulting in the deaths of some 600 French soldiers. Some 600 French troops commanded by Major Kratzert occupied the village of Al-Musayfirah (Mousseifré) on September 15, 1925. Druze rebels attacked French troops in the village of Al-Musayfirah (Mousseifré) on September 16-17, 1925, resulting in the deaths of 47 French soldiers and more than 300 Druze rebels. French troops withdrew from the city of Al-Suwayda (Soueida), the capital of the Jabal al-Druze state, on September 24, 1925. French government troops suppressed a rebellion led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji in Hama in the state of Damascus on October 4-5, 1925, resulting in the deaths of 344 civilians and 76 Syrian rebels. Druze rebels commanded by Hassan al-Kharrat and Nasib al-Bakri attacked French troops and took control of the Damascus on October 18, 1925. French military force bombarded Damascus on October 18-20, 1925, resulting in the deaths of 1,416 civilians and 137 French soldiers. Some 15,000 individuals were displaced as a result of the bombardment of Damascus. The French government declared martial law in Damascus on October 20, 1925. Druze rebels captured Hasbaya on November 9, 1925, but French troops recaptured the city on December 5, 1925. President Subhi Bay Barakat al-Khalidi resigned on December 21, 1925. Henry de Jouvenel was appointed as French High Commissioner for Syria on December 23, 1925. French government troops re-captured Al-Suwayda (Soueida) on April 25, 1926. Ahmad Nami was elected as president of the State of Syria on April 28, 1926. French troops clashed with Druze rebels in the Maydan (Midan) quarter of Damascus on May 6, 1926, resulting in the deaths of several French soldiers. French military forces bombarded the Maydan (Midan) quarter of Damascus on May 7-9, 1926, resulting in the deaths of some 500 civilians and 100 Druze rebels. French troops launched a military offensive against Druze rebels in the Ghuta region on July 18-26, 1926, resulting in the deaths of some 1,500 individuals. Auguste Henri Ponsot was appointed as French High Commissioner for Syria in August 1926. French troops suppressed the Druze rebellion on June 1, 1927. Several thousand individuals, including some 2,000 French soldiers and 6,000 Syrian rebels, were killed during the conflict. Some 100,000 individuals were displaced during the conflict.
Post-Conflict Phase (June 2, 1927-April 17, 1946): The French government renamed the Souaida state as the Jabal Druze state on June 2, 1927. The National Bloc (al-Kutla al-Waṭaniyya), an alliance of nationalist groups led by Ibrahim Hannanu and Hashim Atassi, was established in 1928. High Commissioner Auguste Henri Ponsot appointed Taj al-Din al-Hasani as head of state (head of government) of Syria on February 15, 1928. Elections for a 70-member constituent assembly were held on April 10 and April 24, 1928. The Constituent Assembly convened on June 9, 1928, and presented a draft constitution to the Syrian assembly on August 7, 1928. Several parts of the draft constitution were unacceptable to the French government. André François-Poncet, the French High Commissioner, dissolved the Constituent Assembly on May 14, 1930. The French high commissioner promulgated a constitution for the Syrian State on May 22, 1930, which provided for an elected parliament and president. Legislative elections were held on December 20, 1931 and January 4, 1932, and the National Bloc won 17 out of 69 seats in the Syrian Chamber of Deputies. The Syrian Chamber of Deputies elected Mohammed Ali al-Abid as president on June 11, 1932. The Syrian State was renamed the Republic of Syria in July 1932. Damien de Martel was appointed as French High Commissioner for Syria on July 16, 1933. The governments of France and Syria signed the Franco-Syrian Treaty on November 16, 1933, promising French support for an independent Syria within four years. On November 3, 1934, the French high commissioner suspended the Chamber of Deputies in which there was strong opposition to the Franco-Syrian Treaty. Following the closure of the National Bloc office in Damascus and the arrest of two National Bloc leaders (Fakhri al-Barudi and Sayf al-Din al-Ma’min) by government police, the National Bloc called for a general strike starting on January 20, 1936. Government police killed two demonstrators in Allepo on January 21, 1936. Government troops killed four protesters in Damascus on January 21, 1936. and killed two individuals in a funeral procession in Damascus on January 22, 1936. Government troops killed three demonstrators in Homs on January 22, 1936. Some 40 demonstrators were killed by government troops in Hama on February 6, 1936. Three demonstrators were killed by government troops in Homs on February 8, 1936. Five demonstrators were killed by government police in Dayr al-Zur on February 10, 1936. The French government declared martial law in Damascus on February 10, 1936, and declared martial law in Aleppo, Homs, and Hama on February 12, 1936. Jamil Mardam and Nasil al-Bakri, leaders of the National Bloc, were arrested by government police and deported in February 11, 1936. On March 2, 1936, the French government agreed to negotiations with the National Bloc, which called off the general strike on March 6, 1936. Representatives of the French and Syrian governments signed the French-Syrian Treaty of Friendship and Alliance on September 9, 1936, which provided for the end of the mandate within three years. Legislative elections were held on November 30, 1936. The Syrian Chamber of Deputies elected Hashim al-Atassi of the National Bloc as president on December 21, 1936. On December 26, 1936, the Chamber of Deputies ratified the French-Syrian Treaty of Friendship and Alliance (although the treaty was never ratified by the French government). President Hashim al-Atassi resigned on July 7, 1939. Gabriel Puaux, the French High Commissioner for Syria, suspended the Syrian constitution on July 10, 1939. On the same day, High Commissioner Gabriel Puaux dissolved the Chamber of Deputies and appointed a Council of Commissioners headed by Bahij al-Khatib to administer Syria. The French Mandate of Syria came under the control of “Vichy France” on July 10, 1940. Henri Dentz was appointed as Vichy French High Commissioner for Syria on December 6, 1940. “Free French” troops and British troops liberated Syria from Vichy France on June 14, 1941. Georges Catroux was appointed as General Delegate of “Free France” (led by General Charles de Gaulle) for Syria on June 24, 1941. General Charles de Gaulle appointed Taj al-Din al-Hasani as president of Syria on September 12, 1941. Georges Catroux, General Delegate General of “Free France” for Syria, declared the independence of the Republic of Syria on September 27, 1941. President Taj al-Din al-Hasani died of a heart attack on January 17, 1943. Georges Catroux, the General Delegate of “Free France” for Syria, restored the constitution of the Republic of Syria on March 25, 1943. Jean Helleu was appointed as the General Delegate of “Free France” for Syria on June 7, 1943. A newly-elected Chamber of Deputies convened and a elected a president on August 17, 1943. Yves Chataigneau was appointed as General Delegate of “Free France” for Syria on November 23, 1943. Etienne Beynet was appointed as General Delegate of “Free France” for Syria on January 23, 1944. On May 17, 1945, French troops landed in Beirut, Lebanon in order to restore French administration over Lebanon and Syria following the end of the Second World War. French troops shelled the Syrian parliament and attempted to arrest Syrian government leaders in Damascus on May 29-31, 1945, resulting in the deaths of some 500 individuals. Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain demanded a ceasefire on May 31, 1945. The League of Arab States (LAS) Council expressed support for Syrian independence on June 6, 1945, and demanded the withdrawal of French troops from Syria on June 8, 1945. The French government agreed to transfer command of the Syrian military to the Republic of Syria on August 1, 1945. The Republic of Syria achieved independence when the last remaining French troops withdrew on April 17, 1946.” [xxxiv]
The unity of the Arabs would advance the area, block the imperialists, and defeat Israel. What can achieve this unity when religious, secular nationalism and Stalinism have failed to do so?
Chapter 5: Syria under Hafez Assad
“Syria went through decades of turmoil as competing factions fought over control of the country’s government following independence in 1946. This period was one of coups, countercoups, and intermittent civilian rule, during which the army maintained a presence in the background. From February 1958 to September 1961, Syria joined Egypt in the United Arab Republic (UAR). However, growing Syrian dissatisfaction with Egyptian domination resulted in another military coup in Damascus, and Syria seceded from the UAR. Another period of instability ensued, with frequent changes of government. The Arab Socialist Resurrection (Baath) Party with a secular, Arab nationalist orientation, took control in a March 1963 coup, often referred to as the Baath Revolution. The Baath Party had been active throughout the Middle East since the late 1940s, and a Baath coup had taken place in Iraq one month before the Baath take-over in Syria.
Factionalism continued within the Baathist regime until then Minister of Defense Lieutenant General Hafiz al Assad took power in a bloodless military coup in November 1970. The internal conflict between the Baath Party’s more moderate military wing and more extremist civilian wing had been exacerbated by external events, including Israel’s defeat of the Syrians and Egyptians in the June 1967 war, as a result of which Syria lost territory in the Golan Heights,
Assad, who became president also by popular referendum in March 1971, quickly moved to establish an authoritarian regime with power concentrated in his own hands. A cult of personality characterized his thirty-year presidency, developed to maintain control over a potentially restive population. The dominance of the Baath Party; the state capitalist structure of the economy; the military underpinning of the regime; the primacy of members of the Alawi sect, to which Asad belonged, in influential military and security positions; and the state of emergency imposed as a result of ongoing conflict with Israel further ensured the regime’s stability. Nevertheless, this approach to government came at a cost. Dissent was harshly eliminated, the most extreme example being the brutal suppression in February 1982 of the Muslim Brotherhood, which objected to the state’s secularism and the influence of the “heretical” Alawis.
When Hafiz al-Asad came to power in Syria he announced his intention to allow limited political pluralism in the context of popular democracy. This took the form of the National Progressive Front, established in 1972. Only parties participating in the Front would be allowed to operate: to join, they were required to accept the socialist and Arab nationalist orientation of the government. The Ba’th Party was guaranteed leadership of the Front, and the new constitution, promulgated the same year, provided that it would “lead society and the state”. Furthermore, only the Ba’th would be allowed to operate in the armed forces and among university students” [xxxvi]
The Stalinists during Hafiz Assad
Bakdash, the general secretary of the Syrian Communist Party, and most of the party chose to join the Front of the Ba’th. The more radical elements in the party were against participation in the Front. However, the breaking point did not come until 1976 when the Syrians intervened in the Lebanese Civil War on the side of rightist, Maronite-led elements against the nationalist bloc and its allies in the Palestine Liberation Organization. This was too much for the radicals, and Riyad al-Turk led them into opposition. His faction was termed the Syrian Communist Party (Political Bureau) or Syrian Communist Party (Riyad al-Turk).
During the early 1980s, the Syrian government restricted political activity, and the Communist Party was subject to severe restrictions despite its participation in the national front. It was forbidden to publish its newspapers Nidhal ash-Sha’b (“the People’s Struggle”) and an-Nour (“the Light”), and the security services closely monitored its activities. In 1986, the anti-communist crackdown ended, and Assad lifted the ban on the communist party as a concession to the Russian Stalinists.
“In 1986, Bakdash and Deputy Secretary Yusuf Faisal differed over the policies of perestroika and glasnost adopted by Mikhail Gorbachev. Faisal was supportive of Gorbachev’s reforms, while Bakdash opposed them. This led to a split, with many of the party’s intellectuals leaving with Faisal to form the Syrian Communist Party (Unified) Both factions continued to participate in the NP” [xxxvii]
The Stalinists who remained in the National Front of Assad have claimed that the regime is anti-imperialist. What a gross lie!
“A longtime foe of Iraqi leader Ṣaddām Ḥussein, [Assad] supported the Western alliance against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War (1990–91). He was succeeded by his son Bashshār.” [xxxviii]
“In June 1976, Syria intervened in the Lebanese civil war, sending a force of 25 000 soldiers to Lebanon to prevent the defeat of its Maronite Christian allies. It maintained its military presence in Lebanon for the next three decades and significantly influenced Lebanese politics. During its presence in Lebanon, Syria maintained up to 30 000 soldiers. It had clashes with Israeli forces and various Lebanese factions. Syria lost thousands of soldiers. During Syria’s military presence in Lebanon, excludable crimes such as forced disappearances and torture were carried out against Lebanese nationals, Palestinian refugees, and others by the Syrian military and intelligence branches. In 2005, following the assassination of the Lebanese premier Rafiq al-Hariri, who was a critic of the Syrian presence in Lebanon, Syrian forces withdrew from Lebanon under international pressure.” [xxxix]
While the Stalinists present Hafiz Assad as a progressive figure, “on Feb. 2, 1982, then-Syrian leader Hafiz Assad, father of Bashar Assad, launched a brutal campaign against a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Hama. Under the command of Hafiz’s brother Rifaat Assad, special forces bombarded the city by air and artillery for 27 days, killing tens of thousands. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), the assault claimed at least 30,000 civilian lives, with 17,000 others still missing. Families believe many of the disappeared were killed after being detained, likely in prisons such as Palmyra” [xl]
The Alawites
The Alawites are a religious minority in Syria. Most live on the country’s Mediterranean coast, specifically in the coastal Latakia region. However, they can also be found outside the Syrian cities of Homs. There are also significant Alawite communities in Türkiye’s Hatay Province and Antioch region and in northern Lebanon.
The Alawites have been the dominant political power in Syria since the Assad family took power in 1970. Many Muslims in Syria consider the Alawite sect as heretical, especially since the violence that has erupted between the Alawite government and the Sunni Muslim majority.
“Throughout history, the Alawites called themselves the “Ansaris” and “Nusayri.” However, Syrian Alawite intellectuals dropped this name for “Alawi” during the French occupation in the 1920s. Alawi translates to “those who adhere to the teachings of Ali. ”Modern Alawites have condemned their former name of “Nusayri,” with some considering it an insult. The term is frequently used in hate speech by Sunni Muslims when referring to the Alawites.
Alawites consider themselves a separate sect apart from Shi’a Muslims and do not practice the central duties of Islam.
While strict Muslims are taught to completely abstain from consuming alcohol, for example, Alawites are allowed to drink and use wine in many of their religious rituals, including a secretive form of Mass that Alawite males exclusively perform” [xxxv]
The Kurds
“There are around 2.5 million Kurds in Syria. They speak Kurdish (the Kirimanji dialect), but most speak Arabic, too, and many Kurds have at least partially assimilated into Arab society. Most are Sunni Muslims. About a third of them live in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains north of Aleppo, and an equal number along the Turkish border in the Jazirah. A further 10 per cent can be found in the vicinity of Jarabulus north-east of Aleppo, and from 10-15 per cent in the Hayy al-Akrad (Quarter of the Kurds) on the outskirts of Damascus” [xli]
“After independent Syrian governments continued to adopt a policy of ethnic discrimination and national persecution against Kurds, ultimately depriving them of their national, democratic, and human rights — an integral part of human existence. The government imposed ethnically-based programs, regulations, and exclusionary measures on various aspects of Kurds’ lives – political, economic, social, and cultural – among which are the following:
On 5/10/1962 the Syrian authorities in Hasaka randomly stripped tens of thousands of Kurdish families of their Syrian nationality. The census was implemented exclusively in Hasaka province for just 24 hours only. As a result, tens of thousands of Syrian citizens of Kurdish origins lost their nationality and found themselves deprived of their citizenship. Under Hafez Assad, this repression continued In1999, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a UN body that monitors the commitment of its member States to the covenant, reported that it was “still concerned about the stateless status of a large number of persons of Kurdish origin, who are alleged to have entered the Syrian Arab Republic from neighboring countries from 1972 to 1995 and who are said to number 75,000.” [xlii]
“The violence of the Assad dynasty not only obliterated Syria’s political life for decades but also laid the groundwork for the challenges faced today. Hafez al-Assad’s legacy of systematic repression, epitomized by the 1982 Hama massacre in which 40,000 people were killed, organized dissent by groups like the Muslim Brotherhood – the only existing political opposition to the regime was eradicated, and authoritarian control was established. His policies extended beyond violence, banning the Kurdish language and cultural expressions to enforce Ba’athist unity under the guise of Arab secular socialism. The Mukhabarat, Assad’s feared intelligence apparatus, added another layer of repression, conducting mass arrests, torture, and executions without oversight. Dissent was crushed before it could take root, as emergency laws allowed arbitrary detentions and a climate of fear to prevail. This suppression ensured a smooth transfer of power to his son Bashar in 2000, but left Syria with no infrastructure for meaningful political opposition” [xliii]
Unfortunately for the Kurds in Syria, their leadership has close relations with the Zionist monster. In a recent telephone call with a Zionist reporter, Ariel Khana, a Kurdish leader, told the Zionists that the Kurds expect the pro-Israeli Lobby in Washington to act for them.
Chapter 6: Syria under Bashar Al-Assad
Hafiz al Assad died in 2000 and was succeeded by his son, Bashar al Assad after the constitution was amended to reduce the mandatory minimum age of the president from 40 to 34. Bashar was nominated by the Baath Party and elected president in a popular referendum in which he ran unopposed. He was committed to the privatization of the nationalized economy. “However, he faced resistance from the old guard. After a brief period of relaxation and openness known as the Damascus Spring (July 2000–February 2001), resistance to his policy was blocked., Assad dismantled the old regime by enforcing mandatory retirement and replacing high-level administrators with appointments from outside the Baath Party“.[xliv]
2011 Syrian Uprising
Syria has been under an Emergency Law since 1962, and most constitutional protections for citizens were suspended. Under Hafez al-Assad for nearly 30 years, no opposing political party or any opposition candidate in any election was allowed. The Syrian government justified the state of emergency with the false rationale that Syria was in a state of war with Israel. Criticism of the president and his family was banned, and the domestic and foreign press were censored. This was also Bashar Assad’s policy.
The popular uprising in Syria began in March 2011 in the southern city of Daraa; protests were triggered on 6 March by the incarceration and torture of 15 young students from prominent families who were arrested for writing anti-government graffiti in the city, reading: “الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام” – (“The people want the regime to fall”).
Like other pro-democracy rebellions that have erupted across the Middle East, the protests have taken the form of various types, including marches and hunger strikes. In reaction to the most significant uprising in the country for decades, pro-democracy protests erupted throughout the country. Protesters demanded an end to the authoritarian practices of the Assad regime, in place since Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, became president in 1971. The Syrian government used violence to suppress demonstrations, making extensive use of police, military, and paramilitary forces. Opposition militias began to form in 2011, and by 2012, the conflict had expanded into a full-fledged civil war. Syrian security forces have at least half a million people killed, and some 100,000 people disappeared during Syria’s 13-year civil war. The security forces of Assad injured many more and jailed many who were tortured by the regime. Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah were the prominent supporters that saved the Syrian government, providing military and strategic support throughout the conflict to repress the revolutionary movement. Yet, the bleeding revolution has not died. For a long time, it was alive in Idlib, and from Idlib, the revolution was able at the end of 2024 to win against Assad, the butcher who ran away to Russia.
Part 3
Chapter 7: The Reformist and Centrist Left before the Victory of the Syrian Revolution
While many on the non-Stalinist left opposed the Assad regime and supported the rebels, as soon as the leadership of the revolution became the Islamists, they declared that the revolution was dead.
In a letter published attacking opponents of US aggression in Syria, the authors speak of “the emergence of pro-Assad allegiances in the name of ‘anti-imperialism’ among some who otherwise generally identify as progressive or ‘left’, and the consequent spread of manipulative disinformation that routinely deflects attention away from the well-documented abuses of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies. Portraying themselves as ‘opponents’ of imperialism, these individuals and parties routinely exhibit a highly selective attention to matters of ‘intervention’ and human rights violations; one which often aligns with the governments of Russia and China.
“Those who disagree with their highly-policed views are frequently (and falsely) branded as ‘regime change enthusiasts’ or dupes of Western political interests … What unites them is a refusal to contend with the crimes of the Assad regime, or even to acknowledge that a brutally-repressed popular uprising against Assad took place at all.” [xlv]
The counter-revolutionary Syrian Stalinists supported the bloody tyranny of Assad from the very beginning, and the Communist Party (unified) wrote a statement that attacked the Syrian revolution. Even though without the support of Russian imperialism, Assad would be in a terrible situation, the Stalinists characterized the Assad regime as an anti-imperialist regime that heroically fought against the imperialists and their servants, the rebels. They announced:
“The following statement addressed to the member parties of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties was issued by the Syrian Communist Party (Unified) on Dec. 7, prior to the full liberation of Aleppo but as it became clear that the opposition would be defeated.
Dear comrades:
As is well known, our party, along with other progressive and patriotic parties of Syria, is struggling against what is nowadays considered one of most barbarous imperialist aggressions of the period since World War Two, a struggle against the most extremist and fundamentalist radical movements of this century like al-Nusra Front, ISIS and al-Qaeda which have been condemned internationally.
This struggle is the practical embodiment of confrontation against the imperialist projects of domination in the world and in the region – the U.S. drive to create the so-called “New Middle East.”
Tens of thousands of people have been killed, hundreds of thousands others have been wounded, and thousands of families were forced to migrate to more peaceful areas inside and outside Syria. The damages are countless, thousands of workshops and factories of middle and small industries have been destroyed as well as many large industrial structures, infrastructure, schools and hospitals. Archaeological treasures and ancient cities have been crushed. Syrian oil and other wealth of the Syrian people are being stolen and smuggled to Türkiye whose regime is allied with terrorist organizations. The value of these damages is estimated at around 200 billion dollars.
The Syrian people, along with the government, Syrian army and progressive political forces of the country, has been bravely resisting this aggression since its beginning in 2011.
Terrorists who fulfill this attack on Syria have come from more than 80 countries, supported by the imperial powers of the world and their allies.
The threat now is spreading outside Syria and the region to other areas and countries, including European countries like France and Belgium. Now, terrorism is an international phenomenon, and the U.S. administration is considered the number one supporter of this project fulfilled by terrorists and mercenaries. Experts from western countries and financiers from Arab reactionary regimes, mainly Saudi Arabia and Qatar, provide support and sponsorship to terrorist organizations with the cooperation of Türkiye.
Facing this complicated and hard situation, Syria had to request help from the Russian Federation.
Moscow provided Syria with the support it needed to resist this barbarous aggression.
The Russian help confused the western government and the regional reactionary regimes of Türkiye, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, because this support has radically changed the balance of forces on the battlefield, and helped Syria stand its ground throughout six years of war.
Syria will continue her struggle in defense of the Syrian people and to free the whole Syrian soil from aggressors. The Syrian government informed the international community of the reasons it requested this help from the Russian Federation. This help comes at the request of the legitimate government.
According to the charter of the United Nations and all international resolutions, it is prohibited for any state to attack or interfere in the internal affairs of another state. Any country under attack has the right of self-defense, according to international laws and norms.
At the same time as the legitimate forces are continuing to defend Syria and free the occupied territories from the terrorists, who are trying to impose their laws from 1500 years ago and commit the most bloodthirsty crimes, Syria is supporting a political solution of the crisis on the basis of stopping the bloodshed, evacuating all the occupied areas of foreign terrorist forces, as well as the holding of democratic elections in the county and initiation of a national inclusive dialogue with opposition parties in the country. Yet the terrorists, having relations with certain opposition groups, try constantly to press those groups to keep fighting the government, and to fail the political process based on the Geneva One and Two conferences as well as the Vienna meeting and the agreement between the Russian and the U.S sides.
Comrades!
Blood is still being shed in Syria, especially in the city of Aleppo, the second capital of the country. 75 percent of its territories were freed by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies. However, terrorists in Aleppo refused any truce to save the lives of civilians, whom they use as human shields.
Comrades, our party is most interested in confirming the following facts:
It is not acceptable to put the offender and the victim on an equal footing.
International law does not allow any county to interfere in the internal affairs of any other country, which is what the terrorists and their supporters do in Syria. Demanding President Assad step down is an affair to be decided only by the Syrian people.
The aggressors are the only side who carry the full responsibility for the losses and damages in the country.
The aggression against Syria is going along with a mass media/imperialist campaign, on which billions of dollars are spent by the USA and Saudi Arabia. Through this media facts about events in the country are falsified and this information is spread around the world.
Iraq is also under the same aggression and the Iraqi people are resisting it. It is the duty of all progressive forces of the world to support the brave resistance of the Iraqi and Syrian peoples against the international terrorist aggressors.
Comrades,
The progressive parties in Syria are struggling mainly to save the living conditions of the people, especially in the circumstances of war and the unjust economic blockade against the Syrian people.
However, the Syrians have proven, throughout years of imperialist aggression, their patriotism and determination to hold on to democratic, progressive and independent life. At the same time the Syrian people support the political solution of the crisis.
Our party is looking forward to keeping our mutual connections through all available means, to give answers to any question that may occur on the situation in Syria.
The Syrian Unified Communist Party is also looking forward to cooperate with your party and all progressive and democratic parties in your country in matters of providing humanitarian aid” [xlvi]
The Israeli Stalinist Party also supported the Assad regime:
In June 2011, the secretary-general of the Israeli Communist Party published an article denouncing the Syrian uprising. The piece did not appear in the Hebrew publications of the party.
Veteran journalist Yossef Elgazi (and former Israeli Communist Party member and activist) exposed the fact that the ICP has taken a double stand on the suppression of the Syrian uprising.
“In the beginning of May, the party secretary general, former MK Muhammad Naffa, published an article in a well-known Arabic site, Al Khuwar Al Mathmadan, in which he denounced the uprising. The article drew criticism from many readers, as well as communists in Arab countries. On 2.6.11, Hadash’s site in Arabic published the statement of a meeting of Communist parties in Brussels, which said that “the Communist parties express their support of Syria in the face of the imperialist plots, and demand the cessation of military aggression against Libya”.
On 6.7.11, Hadash’s paper, Al Ithihad, published a shifty article, which in essence called for the end of the popular uprising against the Assad regime. The article was published next to a “report” of the Syrian news agency, Sana, which claimed the rebels killed 120 (what a nice, round number) Syrian security personnel. The Sana piece, which was received with skepticism pretty much elsewhere, was published as is by Al Ithihad.”
The main point here is that all of this announcement of support for one of the most corrupt and murderous regimes in the region appears only in Arabic. Those Hadash supporters who read only Hebrew – a small yet influential number – will not hear a whisper of it, unless they follow Elgazi. Basically, Hadash has been caught in what it has been accused of in the past: Speaking in two voices: One to its Palestinian supporters, the other to its Jewish ones.
“When Hadash speaks to the Jewish public, it puts in front Dov Henin, a strong, persuasive and magnetic speaker with an excellent resume, one of the best parliamentarians in recent decades. But Hadash has never confronted its old, ugly past as a Communist party parroting the Moscow line, and those shrill sounds – “imperialist plots”, “military aggression” – and the automatic support of old Soviet and current Russian clients should remind liberals and socialists that the old beast was never actually slain. Hadash’s claim – one almost writes “façade of” – being a party of both Jews and Arabs took yet another hit. Furthermore, a party supporting the wholesale slaughter in Syria has no business, not to mention credibility, decrying the much lesser evil of the Israeli occupation. The IDF is a brutish instrument of an inhuman policy, but its evils pale into insignificance when compared to those of the Assad regime. And a party which supports the latter loses all moral ground when it attempts to oppose the former.” [xlvii]
The so-called Fourth International (in the tradition of Ernest Mandel), in a statement from 2014, said that they supported the revolution at the beginning when the Syrian National Council was strong, but it was kidnap by the Islamists:
“The Islamist forces, backed by different external forces (primarily Qatar and the Saudi kingdom) are warring amongst themselves – militarily as well as politically. One of the most positive developments over recent months has been the resistance of large parts of the population to these Islamist forces.
Women have been a significant part of the uprising, including on the front line against fundamentalist forces that seek to restrict women’s rights even further.
But fundamentalist Islamists are a lot stronger now than at the beginning of the war. They have received money and resources from Gulf States, giving them an increased military advantage and they are therefore able to attract volunteers. Despite the hypocritical claims by US imperialism that it supports the opposition, it has prevented the delivery to the Syrian National Council of the weapons that they asked for to defend themselves against Assad’s army.” [xlviii]
The IMT, led by Alan Woods (today renamed in “Revolutionary Communist International”, RCI), wrote that the revolution had already died in July 2014 and had become a counter-revolution. On their website “Defense of Marxism” we find under the title “Syria: Why is Assad Advancing?”
“If his opponents had the support of the people in the main cities of Syria, Assad would be in a very fragile position. Instead, he has been able to turn the situation around and regain significant areas previously held by the rebel fighters. How has this been possible when, just three years ago, a wave of revolution swept across the country, putting at risk the very survival of the regime?
The truth is that the Syrian revolution won the support of a significant layer of the masses for a period. The revolution, both in the form of peaceful demonstrations and when it started to arm itself in reaction to the bloody repression meted out by the regime, was gaining support and popularity while Assad was rapidly losing legitimacy. The revolution did that because it drew to itself the best of the youth, those who genuinely wanted to fight for a better world and a better country.
However, the situation soon started to unravel. There is no denial that the revolution faced a very challenging internal objective situation. It was mainly a youth movement faced with heavy repression, and it was unable to mobilise sufficient social forces to overthrow the Assad regime. There were several reasons for this. One of them was that the regime still had some social reserves, based on the reforms achieved in the past.
A key element was when the forces opposed to Assad turned to the armed struggle. Moving the weight of the struggle towards a purely armed confrontation – a field where the movement would naturally be weaker than the regime and its standing army – the ground was prepared for reactionary forces to gain a foothold within the movement itself. Some sections of the movement sought help from imperialism, and others came under the influence of extremist Jihadist elements, which appeared on the scene with plenty of money and arms from their backers in the Gulf states.
Once they were accepted and even, at times, invited into the movement by the activists, the reactionaries quickly used their advantage of having funds and weapons to gradually push aside, isolate, or even kill the revolutionary elements. In essence, they emptied the movement from the inside. It ceased to be a revolution and turned into its opposite.” [l]
The CWI – with the ISA which split from it in 2018 also upholding this line – wrote in April 2011:
“The revolution in the Maghreb and the Middle East is still spreading from one country to another. The uprising against the regime in Syria continues. The regime there desperately clings to power using bloody repression, shooting demonstrators and jailing opposition activists. But the unrest in the region over state repression and social misery has dramatically changed both the area and international relations — and continues to do so” [li]
In December 2016, the CWI/ISA already denounced the revolution:
“In Syria, some on the international left have wrongly adopted some variant of a “campiest” attitude, either by prettifying the – mostly jihadist — armed rebels fighting Assad or by their apologies for the latter.” [lii]
The British SWP in wrote in their paper “Socialist Worker”: “By 2013 the militarisation of the conflict meant people could no longer control the military groups that fought in their names. These became objectively driven by the war itself rather than the goals of the popular uprising. They have often echoed the brutality of the regime. The groups accepted military and financial assistance from countries such as Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in order to survive. These countries’ rulers sought to profit from the crisis and advance their interests. They promoted the most reactionary and jihadist groups.” [liii]
Thus, while the Stalinists supported Assad the butcher and Russian imperialism, Iran and Hezbollah attacked on the revolution, most of the centrist organisations at the beginning stood with the revolution but as soon as the Islamists took over the leadership they turned their back on the revolution. Needless to say, because they argued years ago that the revolution died when the revolution won at the end of 2024, they are blind to it and even condemned it.
Chapter 8: The Reformist and Centrist Left after the Victory of the Syrian Revolution
The reformists and centrists were completely disorientated by the course of the Syrian Revolution in the years after 2011. Hence, it was inevitable that they failed to understand the meaning of the victory 13 years later.
Some people do not understand why the Islamists lead the mass struggle and not the left. To reply to this question, one must know the left’s position in the region. The primary force on the left was the Stalinist parties. However, in 1948, the Stalinist parties dancing to Stalin’s pipe, supported Israel in the war on the Palestinians, claiming that this was an anti-imperialist war. Faced with the revolutionary struggles during the Arab Spring, they supported the military coup of El-Sisi in Egypt as well as Assad in Syria. Now that the uprising against the Assad regime has won, they claim that the rebels are agents of Türkiye, Israel, and the USA.
This is what the Stalinists wrote:
“In the meantime, the Israeli Communist Party (MKI) issued a warning against the disintegration of the Syrian state and its division among foreign interests. According to the announcement, “The dangerous developments in Syria reveal the depth of the international conspiracy against the Syrian people and their country, which has been going on for many years. The conspiracy against Syria, which has become visible to all, is based on cooperation between Türkiye, Israel, and the United States and on the use of fundamentalist terrorist organizations, which in no way represent the interests of the Syrian people” [lxxxiv]
The party’s announcement emphasized that “the large-scale attack carried out by organizations affiliated with Al-Qaeda, equipped with modern technology and weapons, [is] evidence of international support”, especially from Türkiye, whose “recent actions in Syria are intended to serve NATO’s interests in the region and to fulfill Erdogan’s ambition to revive the dream of the Ottoman Empire” [lxxxv]
According to the MKI: “The main target of this plot is Syria itself, to divide it as spoils between regional and international interests. At the head of these interests are Türkiye’s ambitions to expand, as well as the interests of official Israel in the region. The terrorist organizations that are used as playthings in this plot serve external agendas only and do not work for the Syrian people, who are entitled to live with dignity in a free and united country” [lxxxvi]
This statement is a gross distortion of the facts. To begin with, no Islamist fighting organization is affiliated with Al-Qaeda. The leading organization, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is an independent organization and does not serve Türkiye, Israel, or the USA. It is the organization SNA that is serving Türkiye. In addition, the Druze and the Kurds have joined the revolution. Israel occupied the remaining part of the Hermon (that was not occupied in 1967), and the US bombed the rebels, claiming they were ISIS. These are actions against Syria, which is ruled by the rebels.
“Israel has “seized” territory in Syrian-controlled areas of the Golan Heights, as its military warned Syrians living in five villages close to the Israeli-occupied portion of the strategic area to “stay home.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he ordered Israeli forces to grab a buffer zone in the Golan Heights established by a 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria after a lightning advance by Syrian opposition forces ended Bashar al-Assad’s rule.”
“The U.S. carried out a significant round of airstrikes on Islamic State targets on Sunday and warned the terror group against trying to regain strength in the country eon over 75 targets involving ISIS operatives and camps using B-52 bombers, F-15 fighter jets and A-10 close-air support attack aircraft “to ensure that ISIS does not seek to take advantage of the current situation to reconstitute in central Syria,” according to a statement from U.S. Central Command.” [lxxxvii]
Contrary to the Stalinist lies, Syria was not free under the Assad regime. “As the insurgents swept across Syria in just 10 days to bring an end to the Assad family’s 50-year rule, they broke into prisons and security facilities to free political prisoners and many of the tens of thousands of people who disappeared since the conflict began back in 2011…Syria’s prisons have been infamous for their harsh conditions. Torture is systematic, say human rights groups, whistleblowers, and former detainees. Secret executions have been reported at more than two dozen facilities run by Syrian intelligence, as well as at other sites.“ [lxxviii]
According to the Stalinist front in Israel-Hadash, their sister party in Türkiye opposed the revolution in Syria. It is not difficult to understand that the TCP has been on the side of Assad, the butcher. However, in the meantime Hadash removed this position as some Stalinist parties had a different position. Hadash wrote:
“The Turkish Communist Party stated that “Syria will not achieve stability and peace” following the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime. The party warns against “the beginning of an era of barbarism in a country that has suffered massacres, whose territories have been occupied, whose resources have been looted and whose conflicts are incessant. Due to the fall of Assad, Syria will suffer deeper chaos” [lxxxviii]
They spread the lie that Israel and the USA are behind the revolution. They write: “The jihadist movements work in cooperation with Israel to dismember Syria and take over the state. The victory of Israel is the victory of American imperialism.” [lxxxix]
You have to be an idiot to believe it, as Israel is attacking Syria under the rule of the rebels.
“The Turkish communists believe that Israel is the main winner in the newly created situation: “Once again, it has been proven that the conflict in the Middle East is not religious. The jihadist movements work in cooperation with Israel to dismember Syria and take over the state. The victory of Israel is the victory of American imperialism. ‘. But bloody conflicts will likely break out between the groups of the ‘winners,’ and the USA may be able to impose its wrath on them” [xc]
In addition, they equated the imperialists with the rebels. They write:
“The Turkish communists point out that “Bloody conflicts always accompany Pax Americana. Peace, stability, and security in Syria will only be achieved with the defeat of imperialism and the Jihad groups. We make it clear to the citizens of Türkiye: what is happening in Syria is not child’s play. If our country and its future are dear to us, we must stand up and renounce barbarism and act accordingly. What is happening now in Syria is the result of sectarianism, religious fanaticism, nationalism, and dependence on foreign forces” [xci]
They call themselves Communists, but their politics is anti-revolutionary. Abd El-Krim announced the creation of the Rif Republic in September 1921 and introduced sharia law in the territories he controlled. The French and Spanish colonialists attacked the Rif Republic. What was the position of the revolutionary French Communist Party at that time? Did they attack the Rif, calling it barbarism, or stood with the Rif?
Unlike the Stalinist Turks and Israelis, the French Communist party that at that time was part of a revolutionary International stood and with the Rif.
“Only the French Communist Party (PCF) – initially accused by the Komintern of being ambiguous about colonial matters and supported by intellectuals including the Surrealist “Claret” group – organized mass protests against the war, and particularly against the sending of troops to Morocco. At the end of 1924, the PCF also wrote “a pro-Rif manifesto” and sent a telegram of support to Abd el-Krim that would be read before the National Assembly.” [xcii]
Many centrists take a neutral position on the Syrian Revolution, i.e. they neither oppose nor support it. we wrote about these people in an article called “The Bystanders of the Syrian Revolution“.
“The Syrian Revolution which started in March 2011 and finally succeeded in bringing down the Assad dictatorship a few days ago has known supporters as well as enemies amongst self-proclaimed left-wing forces. The RCIT and a few other organisations consistently sided with the heroic struggle of the rebels since the very beginning. In contrast, the Stalinists, Bolivarians and several so-called “Trotskyists” shamefully sided with the tyranny and its Russian and Iranian masters.
However, there has always been also a third category of people – the bystanders. We are talking about those who, while opposing the Assad regime, refused to support the liberation struggle of the Syrian people. They simply took a neutral position and watched from the sidelines while the rebels resisted against the tyranny massacring hundreds of thousands of people. Many of these bystanders sympathized with the revolutionary masses in the first few years but stopped their support as global public opinion lost its interest in the Syrian Revolution.
In the past two and a half weeks when the rebels launched a surprise offensive and liberated Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Daraa and Damascus, most of these bystanders … stood aside. They refused to support the glorious offensive and usually did not even comment on this historic event until the rebels took power.
A characteristic example for such bystanders of the Syrian Revolution is the Latin-American-based “International Socialist League” (ISL or LIS in Spanish) with the Argentinean MST as its “mother section”. A few days after the overthrow of Assad, its leadership finally managed to publish the first statement on the Syrian Revolution since the beginning of the offensive”
The LIS-ISL statement is revealing in several respects. Strangely, it characterises the SDF, led by the Kurdish YPG, as part of the rebel alliance which defeated Assad. This is, of course, nonsense and shows that the authors know about the Syrian Revolution only by hearsay. As a matter of fact, the YPG/SDF, on one hand, courageously defended Kobane and other Kurdish regions against the ultra-reactionary Daesh scum in 2014/15; on the other hand, it shamefully fought since then under the command of U.S. imperialism and, as part of this mission, occupied Eastern Syria. In any case, it was never in an alliance with the rebel forces (HTS and others) which took power a few days ago.
However, the problem with the LIS statement is not limited to factual ignorance. Far worse, it fails to take a position in support of the Syrian Revolution. It rather limits itself to describe the events as a “transcendental” or “very significant development”. While the statement recognises that there was “in 2011, as part of the Arab Spring, … a popular rebellion against the Assad dictatorship”, all this soon degenerated. For them, the Syrian civil war was solely a conflict between reactionary forces since many years.
“Among the rebel political and religious sectors—which were initially more independent—the influence of the US and Türkiye has grown, and they will seek to maintain or expand it. Also, the support of other reactionary states, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and the UAE, for various factions cannot be ignored. Such is the complexity of the situation that these imperialist powers can be in alliance in one part of the country while confronting each other in another. (…) As we mentioned, the situation is influenced by imperialist forces, the expansionist Turkish and Islamist sects, including HTS, that whose strategy is a theocratic that does not guarantee the long-postponed democratic, economic and social rights.”
The popular masses – the forgotten subject of history
These “Marxists” forget the small detail that the Syrian civil war involved the popular masses and hundreds of thousands of rebel fighters. Various rebel factions therefore did not only pursue this or that petty-bourgeois nationalist or Islamist utopia but also reflected, in a distorted way, the revolutionary democratic desire of the masses to overthrow the tyranny. This is why Marxists had to side with these rebel forces without lending political support.
For the LIS leadership, the Syrian Revolution is reduced to an amalgam of reactionary – external and internal – forces; for them, the masses are not a historical subject but merely an object of these forces.
It is therefore not surprising that the whole statement does not mention the need for the formation of popular councils or any similar institutions which could organise the masses in their workplaces, neighbourhoods and villages. This is not a secondary issue because there is no democratic, not to speak socialist, outcome of the revolutionary process in Syria if the masses don’t get organised in such councils and if a workers and poor-peasants’ government based on such councils does not take power.
Hence, the LIS-ISL fails to understand that the Syrian civil war – from the beginning to the end – represented a democratic revolution which Marxists had to support unconditionally and despite the non-revolutionary leadership. Unfortunately, many left-wing forces have failed to recognise this fundamental character of one of the most important revolutionary events of the first quarter of the 21st century.
Non-revolutionary forces and the united front tactic
The LIS-ISL comrades will likely object that the leadership of the rebels are petty-bourgeois nationalists and Islamists. However, this is no serious objection. Numerous liberation struggles have been led by Islamist forces – from Abd el-Krim’s forces in the Rif War 1921-26 to the resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Chechnya, Iraq, Egypt, Kashmir, etc. against foreign imperialism and domestic counterrevolution. The Marxist movement has elaborated the united front tactic exactly for such situations where just wars are led by non-revolutionary forces. This means to jointly strike the enemy while retaining full political independence. Such united front can also involve quite reactionary forces in cases in cases where they stand at the helm of objectively progressive wars.
Trotsky and the Fourth International explicitly sided with the legitimate resistance struggle of the Chinese resp. Ethiopian people. They refused to drop their support because of the reactionary character of their leaderships. In arguing against ultraleft sectarians who opposed support for the Chinese struggle, Trotsky stated: ““But Chiang Kai-shek? We need have no illusions about Chiang Kai-shek, his party, or the whole ruling class of China, just as Marx and Engels had no illusions about the ruling classes of Ireland and Poland. Chiang Kai-shek is the executioner of the Chinese workers and peasants. But today he is forced, despite himself, to struggle against Japan for the remainder of the independence of China. Tomorrow he may again betray. It is possible. It is probable. It is even inevitable. But today he is struggling. Only cowards, scoundrels, or complete imbeciles can refuse to participate in that struggle. (…) In participating in the military struggle under the orders of Chiang Kai-shek, since unfortunately it is he who has the command in the war for independence-to prepare politically the overthrow of Chiang Kai-shek … that is the only revolutionary policy.
Trotsky took the same approach in the case of the Italo-Ethiopian War in 1936. He explicitly argued that socialists must support all forms of aid – including weapons – to the Ethiopian forces. „Of course, we are for the defeat of Italy and the victory of Ethiopia, and therefore we must do everything possible to hinder by all available means support to Italian imperialism by the other imperialist powers, and at the same time facilitate the delivery of armaments, etc., to Ethiopia as best we can.
Glorifying the early period of the Baat dictatorship
There is a methodological basis for such failure: the opportunist adaption to Stalinism and the left-liberal public opinion. The statement reveals that such opportunist influence dominates the LIS-ISL leadership. This becomes evident by their contrasting of (reactionary) late period of the dictatorship with its, supposedly “revolutionary and anti-imperialist” early period.
“It must be noted that the rule of the Baath Party in Syria started in the mid-1960s as a somewhat revolutionary, anti-imperialist project under leaders like Saleh Jaded. However, owing to the lack of a Marxist leadership, ideological confusions, zigzags and intraparty disputes, it ended up as a very corrupt crony capitalism, requiring unprecedented and endless state repression of the vast majority of the Syrian population. The degeneration of the regime accelerated after the 1990s with the adoption of pro-market, neoliberal economic policies, resulting in the loss of the popular support it once enjoyed.”
Such a view of the early period of the Baath dictatorship is bizarre to the extreme! The Baath party, which had no mass basis (its membership did not exceed 2,500 at that time), came to power in Syria via a military coup in 1963. After factional power struggles within the ruling party, General Hafez al-Assad took power in another coup in 1970 and implemented the rule of his family clan which just crumbled a few days ago.
While the Baath regime pursued a certain “socialist” and “anti-imperialist” rhetoric, in deeds it was neither one nor the other at any time. It was rather a state-capitalist military dictatorship. Irrespective of its supposed “anti-imperialist” credentials, it sent troops to Lebanon in 1976 to fight against Palestinian and left-wing forces.
The LIS statement saying that the problem of the Baath dictatorship was a “the lack of a Marxist leadership, ideological confusions, zigzags and intraparty disputes“ is ridiculous. A Bonapartist, state-capitalist regime can not be corrected by a Marxist leadership! The best leadership can not change anything if the working class is oppressed instead of dominating state and economy! Hence, authentic Marxists have always fought for a working class-led revolution against such Bonapartist, state-capitalist regimes.
It is no accident that LIS pursues such glorifying views of the early period of the Baath dictatorship. Its second-largest section – the Pakistani “Struggle” group of the late Lal Khan – was part of the international tendency led by Ted Grant and Alan Woods for decades until it split on organisational and tactical questions a few years ago. Grant elaborated the theory of “proletarian Bonapartism” and wrongly considered Syria under Assad (like Yemen, or Ethiopia) as a “deformed workers’ state” similar to the USSR. This Stalinophile method has also been an important reason why Lal Khan’s “Struggle” group (like Alan Woods’ IMT) supported the military coup of General Sisi in Egypt in July 2011
In conclusion, we can state that the failure of LIS to support an authentic revolution like the popular uprising in Syria stems from their “lack of a Marxist leadership“. It is high time to change this!” [xciii]
Another example for a shameful centrist position is that of the faked “International” led by Woods, the “Revolutionary Communist International”. In the situation that the Arab revolution won in Syria and Assad, the butcher, ran away they claim that the revolution was barbarism – a clear counter-revolutionary position!
The IMT/RCI wrote:
“Starting on 27 November, as a ceasefire was being implemented in neighboring Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel, the offensive launched by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) who control the northwestern governorate of Idlib, rapidly overran Aleppo – the country’s second-largest city – and as of yesterday, the strategic city of Hama. The city of Homs, yet another key city, is now under threat and could fall at any moment. This would leave the regime-controlled coastal areas of Latakia split from the capital, Damascus, with a total collapse of the Assad regime a direct possibility. Syria is staring down an abyss of barbarism.”
“Whereas Hamas and Hezbollah are regularly described as ‘terrorists’, the term ‘rebel’ is deliberately deployed by the west to evoke a romantic image that serves to whitewash the origins and reactionary character of groups like HTS. After all, a rebel is someone who fights against oppression and injustice. In reality, however, these are nothing but jihadi cutthroats, set up by the precursor to the Islamic State and with origins in Al Qaeda” [xciv]
The Islamist leadership of the Syrian revolution is not revolutionary socialist, and they cannot solve the problems of Syria. But only politically blinds can’t understand that their victory will push for the Arab revolution in the entire Middle East and to other uprisings of the working class and the oppressed.
The centrists’ approach has nothing to do with that of Trotsky, the real Marxist. In a letter to Diago Rivera, he wrote:
“I want to stop to discuss in this letter only the Sino-Japanese War. In my declaration to the bourgeois press, I said that the duty of all the workers’ organizations of China was to participate actively and in the front lines of the present war against Japan, without abandoning, for a single moment, their own program and independent activity. But that is “social patriotism!” the Eiffelites cry. It is a capitulation to Chiang Kai-shek! It is the abandonment of the principle of the class struggle! Bolshevism preached revolutionary defeatism in the imperialist war. Now, the war in Spain and the Sino-Japanese War are both imperialist wars. “Our position on the war in China is the same. The only salvation of the workers and peasants of China is to struggle independently against the two armies, against the Chinese army in the same manner as against the Japanese army.” These four lines, taken from an Eiffelite document of September 10, 1937, suffice entirely for us to say: we are concerned here with either real traitors or complete imbeciles. But imbecility, raised to this degree, is equal to treason.
We do not and never have put all wars on the same plane. Marx and Engels supported the revolutionary struggle of the Irish against Great Britain, of the Poles against the tsar, even though in these two nationalist wars the leaders were, for the most part, members of the bourgeoisie and even at times of the feudal aristocracy … at all events, Catholic reactionaries. When Abdel-Krim rose up against France, the democrats and Social Democrats spoke with hate of the struggle of a “savage tyrant” against the “democracy.” The party of Leon Blum supported this point of view. But we, Marxists and Bolsheviks, considered the struggle of the Riffians against imperialist domination as a progressive war. Lenin wrote hundreds of pages demonstrating the primary necessity of distinguishing between imperialist nations and the colonial and semicolonial nations which comprise the great majority of humanity. To speak of “revolutionary defeatism” in general, without distinguishing between exploiter and exploited countries, is to make a miserable caricature of Bolshevism and to put that caricature at the service of the imperialists.
In the Far East we have a classic example. China is a semicolonial country which Japan is transforming, under our very eyes, into a colonial country. Japan’s struggle is imperialist and reactionary. China’s struggle is emancipatory and progressive.
But Chiang Kai-shek? We need no illusions about Chiang Kai-shek, his party, or the whole ruling class of China, just as Marx and Engels had no illusions about the ruling classes of Ireland and Poland. Chiang Kai-shek is the executioner of the Chinese workers and peasants. But today, he is forced, despite himself, to struggle against Japan for the remainder of China’s independence. Tomorrow he may again betray. It is possible. It is probable. It is even inevitable. But today he is struggling. Only cowards, scoundrels, or complete imbeciles can refuse to participate in that struggle“.
“Let us use the example of a strike to clarify the question. We do not support all strikes. If, for example, a strike is called for the exclusion of Negro, Chinese, or Japanese workers from a factory, we are opposed to that strike. But if a strike aims at bettering— insofar as it can—the conditions of the workers, we are the first to participate in it, whatever the leadership. In most strikes, the leaders are reformists, traitors by profession, agents of capital. They oppose every strike. But occasionally, the pressure of the masses or the objective situation forces them into the path of struggle” [xcv]
Alan Woods, the leader of the IMT/RCI who claims to be a master of dialectical materialism, makes gross mistakes when he equates the leadership of an organization with the essence of the struggle. What can you say about a person who condemns a major strike of a working-class union because of the rotten leadership of the union’s bureaucracy?
Woods is a good student of Ted Grant, who claimed in WWII that the Eighth Army of British Imperialism was “our army”. This tendency failed to stand with Argentina, a semi-colony, against British imperialism in the Malvinas War 1982 because reactionary army officers led it. likewise, this tendency also refused to defend Hamas when the Palestinian Authority, backed by Israel, attacked Hamas in 2007.
The British SWP, based on an interview with a socialist activist Ghayath denies that the HTS is the continuation of the revolution that began in 2011, an Islamophobia position.
“Some argue that HTS is continuing the legacy of the Syrian Revolution of 2011. Anger at years of poverty and dictatorship boiled over into mass protests, and by March 2011, massive forces battled against state repression. But, in response, Assad launched a brutal, sectarian civil war in a bid to drown the revolution in blood. His war was designed to make mass struggle impossible. Rival imperial powers used it as a pretext to intervene. Ghayath said that HTS is not continuing the people’s revolution. “HTS does not have a social base in Syria,” he explained. “It recruits from the most desperate people, but it is not a popular organization.” [xcix]
Likewise, the ISA, another right-centrist organization, puts on the same level the revolutionary struggle against the Assad regime and the Assad regime supported by Iran and Russian imperialism.
In an article with the title “Fall of Aleppo Aggravates Military and Geopolitical Crisis“, they say:
“The Islamist HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) militia’s lightning attack and conquest of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, in just two days, has further aggravated the military and geopolitical crisis in the Middle East. The region’s workers, the poor, and the oppressed are paying the price in terms of death and suffering in the military power struggle fuelled by regimes, great powers, and right-wing militias” [xcvi]
They express their Islamophobia. Just because the leadership of the revolutionary struggle is Islamist, they equate the revolutionary struggle with the regime of Assad, the butcher. They can reach this position because they use impressionism rather than dialectics. Impressionists in politics do not see the contradiction between the heroic fighters and the existing leadership.
The same method they are using in Palestine, and they write in the same article:
“In the fighting since the reactionary attack by Hamas on 7 October last year and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza since then”
As a result, instead of giving the rebels in Syria and Hamas in Gaza support for their war without giving them political support, they take counter-revolutionary positions.
But Syria is not an imperialist country. That is very true, but Russia actively supports Assad and is an imperialist country; Imperialist Russia does not only deliver weapons but bombs the rebels and the civilians. But are Hamas and the rebels reactionaries? It is very accurate for the leadership, but the wars they fight are progressive.
On this, Trotsky wrote:
“I will take the most simple and obvious example. In Brazil there now reigns a semi fascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally—in this case I will be on the side of “fascist” Brazil against “democratic” Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to the national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat. Truly, one must have an empty head to reduce world antagonisms and military conflicts to the struggle between fascism and democracy. Under all masks one must know how to distinguish exploiters, slave-owners, and robbers.” [xcviii]
Part 4
Chapter 9: The Revolutionary Communists and the Syrian Revolution
The only tendency that stood all the years with the revolution is the Revolutionary Communist Internationalist Tendency (RCIT!) In November 2024, we wrote:
“While the revolutionary process halted and regressed, it was not dead. This has been evident because Idlib remained a liberated region in the northwest of the country. This had also become clear with the new wave of mass protests in the southern provinces of Suwayda and Daraa in the autumn of last year. Hence, despite all the setbacks, the revolutionary fire was not extinct. Because of this ongoing, albeit deformed and limited, revolutionary process, the rebel fighters have been able to begin a new offensive that is spectacularly pushing back the reactionary forces of tyranny. As we wrote last year: “We repeat that this event confirms the RCIT’s analysis that the Syrian Revolution (…) has not been defeated but is continuing despite all the setbacks the masses suffered in the past years. The same slogans and flags confirm that the current mass protests are part of the same process which started in March 2011.” [xlix]
On November 29, 2024, the RCIT wrote:
“The spectacular revival of the Syrian Revolution is, without doubt, a great event that every socialist cannot but cheer! The rebel fighters advanced about 20 kilometers within 48 hours in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib. As I am writing these lines, they are already fighting in the Western districts of Aleppo City – the second largest city of Syria. The regime has fallen in panic, the Russian advisors and special forces are already leaving the embattled areas, and Brigadier General Kiomars Pourhashemi, the commander of the Iranian advisory forces affiliated with the IRGC, was killed in Aleppo City. Since several years, most self-proclaimed leftists – including those who oppose the Assad regime – have argued that the Syrian Revolution is dead. They said that a) that the masses would have become demoralized and b) that the uprising had been hijacked by “jihadist force. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) has always rejected such claims. Of course, there has been a massive retreat, yes, there has been a process of demoralization, and yes, so-called “jihadists” – a reactionary Islamophobic term stemming from the ideological arsenal of Western and Russian imperialism—are leading the rebel forces. However, such an “analysis” is purely superficial and empiricist as it lacks any dialectic approach oriented to understanding the essence of the totality of the process.” [liv]
On December 16, Yossi Schwartz of the ISL, the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, wrote:
“Al-Shara (Golani), in his first reference to Israel on its occupations and the destruction it causes to weapons and military technology, said that the Syrian people are exhausted after years of war. Therefore, the current situation “does not allow entry into new conflicts.” He also added that “the priority at this stage is restoration and stability, and not to be drawn into conflicts that could lead to further destruction. The Israeli claims (for attacking Syria) have weakened and no longer justify its recent transgressions“. He also added that the steps taken by Israel “threaten an unjustified escalation in the region. He also added that the steps taken by Israel “threaten an unjustified escalation in the region.” In the meantime, the Syrian delegation to the UN filed a complaint against Israel last Friday for the intrusion into Syria and air force strikes against it. It is also in contact with the US. He speaks out of both sides of his mouth, and it is still too early to assess what the new regime’s reaction to Israel and Western imperialism will be, although there are very worrying signs.
It is possible that the Syrian people are not ready for war with Israel, which has considerable military superiority, and that in the future, there will be a military conflict between Syria and Israel in which we will support the rebels without giving them political support. There is a need to demand the new regime’s declarations of support for the Palestinian people.
In any case, the democratic revolution must be completed and the socialist revolution must be continued, and the rebel organizations are incapable of this. The first demand that must be raised is the organization of the working class and the poor peasants through a revolutionary constituent assembly and democratic organizations in every neighborhood of workers and peasants. The expropriation of significant capital. (enterprises, banks), under the democratic supervision of the working class, agrarian reforms for the benefit of the poor peasants must also be advanced.
Complete the democratic revolution – expel the imperialists, create a revolutionary constituent assembly!
Independent democratic organization of the workers and the poor peasants!”
Another member of the ISL, Adam Smith, wrote:
“Abu Mohammad al-Julani (referring to the Golan Heights) has decided to emphasize his old name Ahmed al-Sharaa in order to signal to Israel that he is willing to compromise on this issue, despite formally committing to the “territorial integrity of Syria”.
“Julani said, “Israel’s excuses for entering Syria no longer exist. After the Iranians’ departure, there are no more justifications for any foreign intervention in Syria.” “The exhausted Syrian situation after years of war and conflicts does not allow for entering into any new conflicts.”
Julani called on the international community to intervene and take responsibility for preventing escalation and respecting Syrian sovereignty. He stressed that diplomatic solutions are the only way to ensure security and stability, away from any ill-considered military adventures.
Despite dodging any provocative question about Russia, Julani said that the revolution was an “opportunity to re-evaluate the [Russian] relationship with Syria in a way that serves common interests.”
Julani differentiated between the Kurdish community and the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist organization, signaling the realignment of the mostly Kurdish SDF with the rest of the Syrian opposition.
Julani confirmed that the Syrian Defense Ministry would be dissolving all armed factions and that all weapons would be under the authority of the Syrian state.” [lv]
From this we can learn several things, namely, that he is ready to compromise with Israel, Russia, Türkiye, and the United States. In a tacit agreement by pressure of Türkiye, Syrian rebels let Russia withdraw their equipment from Tartus and Latakia “peacefully”.
“In a move that has drawn some international condemnation, Israel also entered a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights just hours after the rebels, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, took Damascus. Israel has said it will not become involved in the conflict in Syria and that its seizure of the buffer zone established in 1974 was a defensive move and a temporary one until it can guarantee security along the frontier.”
In a video message to the new regime taking shape in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the IDF bombed military strategic capabilities left by the Syrian military of the ousted Assad regime “so that they won’t fall into the hands of the jihadists.”
He added that Israel was ready to establish relations with the new rulers but won’t hesitate to attack if they threaten the Jewish state or allow Iran to reestablish itself in Syria.” [lvi]
Israel is the gendarmerie of the Middle East – the fact that Israel is willing under the right conditions to establish relations with the new rulers shows a lot about them, but at the same time Israel is sending tanks to watch over Damascus to make sure the revolution does not go too far.
“Syrian rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani, has said that the new Syrian regime will operate according to Sharia Law.
Speaking in Damascus, al-Julani said that the regime’s morality police will operate under the Minister of Internal Affairs and be under the supervision of religious clerics and mullahs.
The morality police’s job will be to ensure that the public implements Sharia Law, and in doing so, it will prioritize the path of “dawah,” proselytization and education, instead of operating through force.” [lvii]
While saying he will respect minorities’ rights, al-Julani also talks about establishing morality police – even if it will only apply to Sunni Muslims, this is not a step in the direction of a democratic revolution. So far the minorities (as well as women) remain sceptical rather than fully supporting his leadership.
“He accused the Assad dynasty of building a feudal tax farm designed to extract wealth from its subjects instead of supporting them. “There was a systematic destruction of the agricultural, industrial, and banking sectors. The regime did not build a state, but rather a farm, and the extent of the thefts was large. Documents will be presented to prove this.” [lviii]
The other task of the democratic revolution is agrarian reform and industrialization. This will also be impossible without a socialist leadership. This is a textbook example of theory of the permanent revolution – in the imperial age, a national-democratic bourgeois cannot accomplish the tasks of the democratic revolution – national liberation against foreign agents (Israel, Russia, Türkiye, etc), industrialization and agrarian reform, and a democratic constitution with equal rights for all.
Down with Israel’s creeping occupation of Syria! For a return of the Golan Heights to Syria!
Down with foreign interference in Syria!
For a democratic constituent assembly in Syria!”
On December 2 Michael Pröbsting wrote:
“The glorious offensive of the Syrian rebels is astonishing by any standards. In the last few days, they liberated all parts of the province of Idlib, most of the province of Aleppo – including Aleppo City, the second largest city of the country with more than 2.3 million people – and entered the province of Hama. The current front line is north of Hama city.
The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) supported the Syrian Revolution from the very beginning. [lix]While we lend no political support to the rebels’ leadership, we strongly welcome the offensive as it opens the possibility to for a popular uprising to bring down the reactionary Assad regime after more than 13 years of civil war. [lx]
We recently published some first lessons from the renewed upswing of the revolutionary process. [lxi]In this article, we will discuss some interesting developments of the last two days.
What does the rapid collapse of the Assadist forces reveal?
One of the most impressive facts is that within a few days the rebels liberated a territory larger than they did already held in Idlib. This shows that not only that the people despise the Assad tyranny but that even its soldiers are not motivated to fight for it.
As a matter of fact, most soldiers of the Assad army are either forced conscripts or have been motivated by corruption as such positions allow to extort bribes from locals and travellers.
One may ask, how could the Assad regime survive until now? It could do so solely because of massive military and financial support by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. As we always said, without their air force and troops, the dictatorship would have collapsed long time ago.
However, such support was severely undermined in the past years mainly for two reasons. First, since spring 2022, Putin needed his forces for the war against the Ukraine – a substantially higher priority for the Kremlin than Syria. Second, since 7 October 2023 Hezbollah’s priority, naturally, was the defense of its own country. This depleted Assad’s military forces in the north and allowed the rebels to push them back within a few days. [lxii]
There are rumours that pro-Iranian militias in Iraq send thousands of fighters to help the Assad regime to survive. [lxiii] In the end, it will be crucial question, to what extent will Russia and Iran mobilise troops and air force to keep the tyrant – an important ally for them – in power. [lxiv]
The popular and non-sectarian character of the uprising
The popular character of the ongoing Syrian revolution has been demonstrated throughout the whole process since 2011. We also see now how many people cheer at the possibility to return to their homes liberated from Assad’s thugs. There have also been spontaneous uprisings by the local populations in several towns of the southern provinces Daraa and Suwayda. In some places, people staged rallies against the Assad tyranny (e.g. Suwayda), in others, they attacked or even disarmed and expelled the regime forces. [6] Such local uprisings are happening also in other provinces like in Zakia city in the Damascus countryside or in Talbiseh city in the Homs province. [lxv]
This is particularly remarkable since the Assad regime is deeply feared because of myriads of horrible acts of terror which it has committed in the past decade, resulting in more than 600,000 people killed and many more arrested and tortured since the beginning of the uprising 13 years ago. However, the rebels’ offensive gives them new hope.
As we noted in our last article, while there were some sectarian tendencies in the Syrian Revolution – as a result of the extremely sectarian nature of the regime directed against the Sunni majority of the population – there also exist strong non-sectarian tendencies in this process. Events in the past days have strongly confirmed this. First, the uprisings in the southern province of Suwayda are largely based on the local Druze population.
Second, the opposition issued several statements in which it emphasised that the revolution is inclusive for all religious sects. [lxvi]There have been efforts to guarantee normal life for the Christian minority in Aleppo[lxvii]. They also issued a statement affirming that “Kurds are part of Syrian society and have the same rights.”
Of course, it would be naive to exclude the possibility that sectarian actions could be committed by sectors of the rebel forces. There exists a long history of anti-Kurdish sentiments – especially among the factions from with the Türkiye-allied “Syrian National Army”. Such tendencies could easily be intensified given the close cooperation of the Kurdish main force – the SDF/YPG with the Assad regime and with U.S. imperialism. Likewise, various radical Islamist forces committed crimes against non-Sunni sects in the past decade. Still, it is encouraging to see that there seems to be now a conscious move by the opposition against sectarianism.
What is Israel’s role?
Supporters of the reactionary Assad regime try to smear the Syrian Revolution by claiming that the offensive would be a conspiracy of Israel against the “Axis of Resistance”. For example, the First Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, Mohsen al-Mandalawi – a close ally of the Mullah dictatorship in Iran – “warned of the dangers posed by recent terrorist activity in Syria and its potential impact on security and stability in Iraq and the wider region. (…) [He] linked these developments to the setbacks faced by the Israeli entity in Lebanon and Gaza. He stated that the Israeli occupation’s failure to dismantle the unified fronts supporting Palestine prompted it to revive the use of terrorist groups in Syria.” [lxviii]
Similar statements have been issued by Iranian officials or the pro-Hezbollah Al Mayadeen in Lebanon. This is, of course, an outrageous and silly lie. If Israel had any influence over the Syrian rebels, why on earth did they not instruct them to launch their offensive long time ago, before they had to settle for a ceasefire in Lebanon but only after?! Why did they wait for more than one year since the beginning of the conflict at the Lebanese-Israeli border on 7 October 2023?!
Of course, Israel has always tried to weaken Hezbollah and to restrict Iran’s arms shipment. This is why Israel regularly wages air strikes in Syria and will continue doing so.
Nevertheless, the Zionist state prefers the stability delivered by a dictator like Assad – who never fired a single shot against Israel – to the “chaos” of the Syrian Revolution. According to Israel’s Channel 12, the Israeli army is preparing for the possibility to carry out airstrikes in Syria for fear of strategic weapons (ballistic missiles and chemical weapons) could fall into the hands of “jihadists” [lxix]
In short, Israel considers Hezbollah and Iran as enemies. It also resents the Assad regime insofar as it lends support to these adversaries. But it fears much more the Arab Revolution of which the popular uprising in Syria has been a key component from the very beginning.
The ruler of UAE in solidarity with Assad
The position of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – Israel’s closest Arab ally in the region which “normalized“ relations under the so-called “Abraham Accords” in 2020 – is equally hostile to the Syrian Revolution. In a phone call with Assad on 1 December, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed – the royal and authoritarian ruler – “affirmed the UAE’s solidarity with Syria and its support for it in combating terrorism and extremism.” [lxx]
The Emirates is a small but extremely rich country. 88% of the population are migrants who work as a super-exploited labour force for the rich elite. Due to its gigantic wealth – based on huge oil and gas reserves – it has also built a sizable military with a state-of-the-art air force and tens of thousands of mercenaries. [lxxi]It plays a very reactionary role in the region and was always hostile to the Arab Revolution. It was a driving force in the reactionary invasion of Yemen in 2015 and is a major supporter of General Hemedti’s notorious RSF militia in Sudan as well as of General Haftar in Libya.
It is therefore hardly surprising that such a reactionary and pro-Zionist dictatorship hopes that the Assad regime will be able to brutally smash the popular uprising. Reactionary rulers always prefer “stability”, i.e. the unchallenged order of the imperialist powers and the local capitalist class, to the “revolutionary chaos”, i.e. the struggle of the workers and oppressed for freedom and dignity!”
Convergencia Socialista, the RCIT section in Argentina, wrote:
“Lenin explained many times that there is a fundamental law in the class struggle: “when those at the top fight, those at the bottom have better opportunities to fight…” That is what happened in Syria, where the foreign forces that supported the butcher of Damascus – Russia and Syria – effectively abandoned the regime because they were forced to concentrate troops and resources in two different wars, Ukraine and southern Lebanon, in short, in conflicts that involve those at the top.
This reality, added to the ambitions of the Turkish government and other bourgeois sectors that encouraged the advance of the anti-government militias – located in Idlib – produced a substantial change in the political and social situation in Syria and the Middle East. This was so, because, beyond the intentions of these capitalist fractions, their actions ended up encouraging the reappearance of that sleeping giant, the mass movement, which, finally, took center stage in a magnificent way.
Millions took to the streets – in that country and in exile – while hundreds of young people recognized the weapons abandoned by the demoralized soldiers of Bashar’s army, to celebrate with shots in the air, loot the lavish residences of the regime’s officials or enter the terrible Baathist prisons with the purpose of freeing thousands of prisoners. Without any decree or law that allowed it, it was the masses themselves who fulfilled one of the fundamental democratic slogans of the resistance!
The working class and the people entered with all their forces into the new political life of Syria, which, beyond the intentions of the leadership of the HTS and other militias – confessional or secular – will mark and define the agenda of the coming days. A left-wing analyst from Spain said, very accurately, that, at this time, the Syrian people are enjoying a freedom never seen in that region. This great freedom – the most precious treasure of millions – will not be easily handed over to any Jihadist adventure or to the “moderates” who want to disguise the regime to continue it.
For this reason, the main task of the socialists is to tell the masses in struggle that, to defend and deepen these freedoms, they have to demolish the old regime and build another one based on direct democracy, the one that they began to put in place, with the local councils of the first years of the revolution.
For this, more than the actions of infallible leaders, it must be the people who resolve everything, through a large assembly, which has a constituent character, where they discuss and resolve what to do with the economy, international relations, old officials, etc. There, the revolutionaries will propose the need to establish a government of the working class and the peasantry controlled by local councils, with which the people will exercise true democracy, direct democracy.
This mechanism will prevent the imposition of a government similar to the previous one or a “caliphate” that enforces Sharia law. It will be those at the bottom who govern, controlling the officials and deciding what economic and social plan is needed to rebuild the country! In this framework, we socialists will raise the need to expel all foreign powers from the country, put all the resources of Syria at the service of the glorious Palestinian resistance, form popular courts that judge and punish the genocidal Baathists and the expropriation of the big bourgeoisie – local and international – whose properties and establishments will pass into the hands of its workers.
The Syrian workers and popular government will have to guarantee respect for the territories, language and culture of the different ethnic groups, such as the Kurds, who suffered or continue to suffer oppression under the dictatorship of Bashar al Assad, the “caliphates” of the Islamic State or the counterrevolutionary regimes of “Sultan” Erdogan, the Persian ayatollahs and the Iraqi government.
The revolutionary process in progress is not being led by a revolutionary workers’ party, but by religious groups – petty bourgeois or directly bourgeois – that became strong, not by proposing the “sharia” law, but by raising democratic and solidarity slogans with the Palestinian people. We must demand that they comply because that will be the only way to help the workers and the people experience these people, unmask their most disastrous policies and, within that framework, ensure that the revolutionary left gains authority and becomes in a real alternative!
“Concerning the leadership of the rebel forces, it is certainly true that these are petty-bourgeois Islamist-nationalists like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. As revolutionary socialists we reject their program and their strategy and advocate their replacement by an authentic revolutionary leadership. But our political opposition to such forces does not mean that we would consider the struggle which they are leading as reactionary. No, they are leading a popular uprising which has a profound progressive content: the overthrow of the Assad tyranny and the expulsion its Russian and Iranian masters. This is why the struggle led by such forces has a lot of support among the popular masses” [lxxii]
“The processes of struggle for the national liberation of the oppressed peoples and the masses against the oppression of dictatorial regimes are not, under capitalism, pure processes directed by the working class with its organizations. This is how Nahuel Moreno described it, when he referred to most of the revolutions in the second half of the 20th century.
“At its head there was not a revolutionary Marxist workers’ party, but petty bourgeois or bureaucratic petty bourgeois parties. That is to say, the last two conditions defined by Trotsky, the proletariat with revolutionary will and its revolutionary Marxist party, were absent in these triumphant revolutions. On the other hand, the first two conditions developed enormously: the crisis of the capitalist regime, economic and political, and the turn to the left, towards revolutionary actions to fight against the regime of the people in general. This happened because at this time the crisis of the bourgeoisie is no longer acute, but short-term, as in the past. Now the crisis of the bourgeoisie is acute but also chronic, permanent, with no way out. This crisis, in the political field, is a chronic and hopeless crisis of the regime and the bourgeois state.” [lxxiii]]
This period of chronic crisis of the bourgeois democratic regime and dictatorships – such as that of Assad – is the breeding ground in which the bodies of workers and popular power have emerged prior to 2020, mainly the local councils of Syria, which the masses in struggle must recover to go deeper and fulfil the wishes of those hundreds of thousands who fell under the bullets and bombs of Bashar al Assad and his Iranian and Putinist friends.
For this reason, the main task of the socialists is to tell the masses in struggle that, to defend and deepen these freedoms, they have to demolish the old regime and build another one based on direct democracy, the one that they began to put in place, with the local councils of the first years of the revolution” [lxxiv]
Communist Tendency, the Russian section of the RCIT, wrote:
“What is the Syrian Revolution?
The Syrian Revolution, which began in the spring of 2011 as part of the pan-Arab anti-government uprisings known as the Arab Spring, was a popular uprising against the tyranny of the Assad family and the Alawite sect. Under the Assad regime, whose rule has lasted more than 40 years, the majority of Syria’s population has been oppressed along religious and national lines, because the Alawite sect has a privileged position over the Sunni majority and other religious groups in the country. But most importantly, the entire population of the country, with the few exceptions of the ruling class and groups close to it, has been in a severe state of poverty for the past decades, which is also aggravated by the absence of any democracy in the state.
The revolution that developed out of the popular uprising was represented on the ground by the Free Syrian Army, which was an umbrella, partly horizontal, largely decentralized structure that included many different factions and organizations. Now we will not consider in detail what was the army of the revolution, you can do it yourself in the corresponding section of the RCIT website.” [lxxv]
“In more than a decade of struggle, the opposition forces in Syria have changed a lot since the armed uprising began. The starting point for the beginning of these changes can be considered 2013, when Iran intervened in the Syrian civil war as a regional power on Assad’s side. The changes are largely due to the fact that the popular rebel forces, which previously received only moderate diplomatic support from Western countries and partial assistance from Türkiye, began to fall under the influence of Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the one hand, and Türkiye’s influence began to increase on the other. This led to several splits and confrontations even among themselves. For example, during the battle for Aleppo in 2016, part of the rebels did not take part in the defense of the city, “sitting back”, away from the city, while the other part fiercely resisted Assad’s forces, Russian Federation and pro-Iranian groups.
In 2015, Russia intervened in the war and with the help of multiple technological superiority, defeated the rebels head-on, lifting the siege on Damascus and winning a number of crucial battles. In the course of this, the Saudis and Qatar completely refused to support anyone in Syria, and the Turks concluded a number of separate treaties with the Russian Federation (the Sochi agreements, the Astana agreements), thus “freezing” the conflict. At the same time, quite a few FSA units were reformatted by the Turks in 2017 into the Syrian National Army, which in 2019 also included the National Liberation Front, created in 2018. This formation is closely allied with Türkiye and participates with it jointly in the battles against Rojava.
It is also important to note the role of Rojava in the Syrian civil war – the Syrian Democratic Forces never advocated independence from Assad, did not actively fight him, helped him in the capture of Aleppo, also fell under the complete dependence on the US and the Western coalition, becoming in fact the guards of the oil fields for the US from the ISIS (all the victories of the YPG/YPJ over the ISIS are the work of the US-led coalition aviation).
After the “freezing” of the conflict in Syria, the SDF entered into a close alliance with Assad [lxxvi]thus most of Rojava is jointly controlled by the YPG/YPJ and the Syrian Arab Army. When the SAA entered Manbij, locals began organizing strikes against it, which were suppressed with violence by SDF. [lxxvii] Also, most of the areas under SDF control are not Kurdish and the Arab population there has been subjected to mass repression and expulsion from their homes on false accusations of links to ISIS. [lxxix]
In order to understand why the victory of anti-imperialist forces and movements in the modern world opens new chapters in history for humanity and gives it a chance to win progressive achievements, we need to look at a vivid example from the recent past.
The victory of the Taliban over the US in Afghanistan led to the fact that from that moment, from 2021, we can say for sure that the US lost the status of the sole world hegemon. And this, in turn, has led to the following:
1. Competing imperialists have become bold enough to challenge Western imperialism directly in those zones of influence which they formally consider their own – Russia in Ukraine, China in Africa
2. Since 2019, and especially since 2021 – because the fall of the US as the world hegemon did not happen overnight and not in one year – the number of just popular uprisings, revolutions, riots, protests, strikes, etc. has increased dramatically in the world. This happened because the grip of the strongest world imperialist as a policeman who benefits from the status quo and absolutely predictable order, weakened, which, in turn, gave the masses the opportunity to take up arms against their reactionary governments, which previously existed at the expense of US support.
That is, the “what did the Taliban’s victory give to the workers of Afghanistan” discourse is both a national limitation and a dogmatism that demands a social revolution “here and now” or never. The Taliban’s victory over the US in Afghanistan opened a new epoch in modern history, one marked by the rise of wars both reactionary and just, progressive. The defeat of the imperialist is the destruction of the status quo over a vast area of the world. The victory of the imperialist is the consolidation of the status quo and the enslavement of a larger area of the world” [lxxx]
From all the duality of certain events and phenomena, we must be able to recognize their main characteristics and isolate their progressive elements. In the case of the defeat of US imperialism in the Middle East and Central Asia, we are most interested in the fact that the oppressed peoples have been given a chance for liberation.
The same logic works in the case of the Syrian rebels who are fighting Russian imperialism and Iranian destructive influence in the region.
The very revival of the Syrian Revolution was made possible by the fact that the Russian armed forces prioritize the fighting in Ukraine, during which their credibility in the world has been severely shaken, while Iran and its allied groups are distracted by the fight against Zionism, during which Hezbollah, having defeated Israel politically, is unable to operate militarily outside Lebanon.
Consequently, the defeat of Russian imperialism in Syria will weaken its grip on the entire Middle East region and beyond. The defeat of the Iranian intervention will weaken its “police” grip in Iraq. All this will give the subjugated peoples of the East the opportunity to raise their heads and push their way to freedom.
On the prospects for the Syrian Revolution
Based on what RCIT has described in previous articles about what is happening in Syria and throughout the region [lxxxi].we can hypothesize a further scenario.
To begin with, we must speak out about what the socialist movement in Syria and throughout the world should strive for: socialists advocate the establishment of workers’ and fellah councils; any future government must be based on such councils. In fact, the only guarantees against the degeneration of the revolution are:
a) the creation of workers’ and fellah councils and militias,
b) the creation of a workers’ and Fellah government based on them.
c) the creation of a strong revolutionary party that can lead the masses.
Let’s turn to the prospects in post-Assad Syria.
The opposition has overthrown the tyrannical regime of Bashar al-Assad and is taking control of much of free Syria.
Here, we may argue that a military dictatorship and/or an Islamic fundamentalist regime may now take over. But, first, to refuse to support the anti-imperialist forces because of this, one must, in the apt expression of Leon Trotsky, “have a very bad head”. [lxxxii]
Secondly, for any of the Syrian opposition groups to establish their dictatorship of different nature, it is necessary for one of them to completely dominate politically, economically and militarily. However, the situation is such that the Syrian opposition is represented by a whole spectrum of different factions with different ideologies and views on the future of Syria, and the largest of them control their own separate governments. For example, the SNA claims allegiance to the Syrian Interim Government (SIG), while the HTS acts on behalf of the Syrian Salvation Government. None of them is dominant enough to subjugate their “competitors” within the opposition.
In this case, we see the following scenario: opposition Syrian groups unite into a single interim government, which will have representatives from all forces that are important in the anti-government struggle. And this, in turn, means that they will have to negotiate among themselves, negotiate and once again negotiate, while relying on the opinion of the masses, being directly dependent on it. So, in a nutshell, the victorious opposition will have no other option but to form a democratic government with the support of the Syrian masses.
The fact that the Syrian masses are united by a common demand to overthrow Assad and build a new, democratic Syria may prevent these opposition groups from starting a war among themselves, but the people are skeptical of the leaders of the victorious opposition, to put it mildly, and therefore these leaders will have to go at least partially at the mercy of the masses in order to maintain their influence.” [lxxxiii]
It should be borne in mind, however, that the pressure of the masses cannot last forever unless it is organized in the people’s councils. Otherwise this pressure will lose its force.
Of course, a split between rebel factions is possible. We can be more specific: in our opinion, those factions that depend on Türkiye (the SNA groups) are the most dangerous. Türkiye is interested in appeasement and may try to use the SNA to sabotage the revolution and drive out the HTS and its allies.
Another possibility is that Jolani will form a government and try to consolidate power. It is unlikely that it will be an “Islamic caliphate” – at least not in the first period. It is more likely to be a coalition government that will provide some democratic freedoms, but a very unstable situation will remain. ISIS will try to cause trouble, Türkiye will try to regain and/or increase its influence, the remaining Assadist elements will certainly not sit on the sidelines either.
In any case, a petty-bourgeois nationalist or Islamist movement, once in power, will sooner or later develop in a bourgeois direction and create a capitalist regime. The pressure of the masses can stop this process to a certain extent. But unless the masses replace such leadership with their own government, the process will go in a bourgeois direction. Of course, this process can be strongly influenced by a revolutionary party, but such a force, as we know, does not yet exist.
Does this mean that a political revolution that overthrows Assad but moves in a bourgeois direction is completely useless and socialists should therefore not support the current revolutionary process? Of course not!
The reasons are as follows:
1. The outcome described above is not guaranteed, and the inevitable process after the fall of Assad will provide different possibilities.
2. Revolutionaries support the struggle even if the obstacles are enormous. Can you imagine a socialist not joining the strike because the bureaucrats might sell out the struggle at some point!
3. Even an aborted and bourgeois revolution can bring some gains (like winning more democratic rights). And even the destruction of Assad’s state apparatus is a huge achievement in itself, and it will take a long time for a new bourgeois government to recreate such a monster.
4. The international consequences of overthrowing Assad could be a) loss of prestige and regional influence for Russian imperialism and b) inspiring consequences for the Arab masses who despise their own tyrants (e.g. Sisi in Egypt, the king in Saudi Arabia, etc.)
5. And above all, such a revolutionary process provides the masses in Syria and around the world with invaluable experience. And it also allows revolutionaries to discuss with the vanguard the lessons of such struggles and demonstrate the difference between Bolshevism on the one hand and centrism and reformism on the other.
Conclusions
The Syrian revolution, which began as a popular decentralized uprising of the masses with an umbrella structure, has undergone a series of metamorphoses, but can and should still be considered progressive, despite and in spite of the petty-bourgeois religious leadership. Without politically aligning ourselves with the ideology of the rebel groups, we continue to support the just demands of the Syrian people for the expulsion of all foreign oppressors from their country once the goal of overthrowing the murderous tyrant Bashar Al-Assad has been achieved.
The Syrian people had no choice but to submit to the Alawite dictatorship and continue to wallow in poverty, hunger and devastation for the benefit of imperialist and regional powers, or to stand up for their freedom in arms.
The socialists of the world should not have given up supporting this struggle, but should advocate deepening it to social revolution, which is only realizable with the replacement of the petty-bourgeois leadership with a socialist leadership, which cannot happen without the participation of socialists in a just struggle.
* Glory to the Syrian Revolution!
* For the expulsion of all foreign oppressors!
* For international solidarity with the victorious masses!
* For the power of the workers’ and fellah councils!”
Chapter 10: On the Perspective of the Syrian Revolution
The RCIT is fully aware that the democratic revolution in Syria is not completed. Yes, it destroyed the totalitarian state apparatus of the Assad regime, yes, it broke the domination of Syria by Russian imperialism and Iran. But in order to establish a truly democratic country with equality and self-determination for all national and sectarian groups, the working class and the oppressed masses must take power. This is only possible under a revolutionary leadership.
In an extensive statement, we outlined the perspective for the competition of the Syrian Revolution.
“1. After 13,5 years of revolutionary uprising and civil war, the Syrian revolutionaries have finally succeeded in crushing the Assad tyranny. In this long period, the Syrian masses made the greatest sacrifices as the brutal regime and its Russian and Iranian masters slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people. No doubt this is one of the greatest revolutions of the first quarter of this century! The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) is proud of supporting the Syrian Revolution since its beginning in March 2011 and being involved in numerous solidarity activities.
2. The first week after the overthrow of the dictator has seen celebrations of millions on the streets, the search for survivors in the secret cells in the infamous Sednaya prison, the reorganisation of life, revenge against brutal torturers and killers, etc. At the same time, the Zionist state, which fears the revolutionary consequences of the victory of the Syrian people, exploits the chaos in the country and has already launched more than 800 attacks against military and civilian infrastructure.
3. In a first statement, published a few hours after the downfall of Assad on 8 December, we pointed out that “the Glorious Syrian Revolution has won but it is only a first step!” We have said so because meeting the desire of the masses for freedom and equality requires much more than the defeat of the old regime. It demands the creation of a new state which serves the labouring masses and which is controlled by them. We therefore warned: “Brothers and sisters, do not trust any leader – neither Jolani nor anyone else! Trust only yourselves, your arms, your power!” And, indeed, the last few days have shown that the new leading group around Abu Mohammad al-Julani (Ahmed al-Sharaa) has no intention to build such a state but rather wants to pacify the revolutionary process.
4. Effectively, Julani seeks for the bourgeois institutionalisation of the Syrian Revolution. This has been demonstrated by a number of statements and decisions by the new government which aim for:
* Demobilisation and disarming of the masses
* Creation of a state apparatus which includes sectors of the rebels, but which also takes over large sectors of the old, Assadist bureaucracy and repression apparatus
* Creation of some kind of bourgeois-parliamentarian institutions
* Creation of a free market economy
* Acceptance by imperialist as well as by regional powers
* Focus on internal stability instead of expanding the revolution and confronting Israel
5. The RCIT warned already in 2017 that Julani’s HTS and similar forces would enter such a road once they take power: “In the end, the lack of a strong revolutionary party means that the leadership remains in the hand of petty-bourgeois forces which either aspire to take a place at the top of the bourgeois state apparatus (and hence are always looking for a compromise with the ruling class and imperialism), or which follow a religious sectarian agenda that is guaranteed to repel large sectors of the working class and the oppressed, and which strives to create a regime which would subjugate the popular masses to the rule of a small military and theocratic elite.” Hence, Julani’s policy is not surprising, in fact, this has been the fate of many petty-bourgeois nationalist, populist or Islamist forces which led liberation struggles of the masses but, once they took power, degenerated into defenders of the capitalist order. To name only a few examples, we refer to the South African ANC, the FSLN in Nicaragua and the FMLN in El Salvador, or al-Ikhwan and Mursi in Egypt. In other words, once they take power, petty-bourgeois forces become less petite and more bourgeois.
6. Of course, we are aware that the revolutionary process is still at its beginning and Julani’s government is far from succeeding in implementing its goals. But it is necessary that authentic revolutionaries warn of the dangers and, consequently, advocate the necessary tactics in order to defeat these dangers in the coming months. We have entered a period full of contradictions and instability because the new government faces a myriad of contradictions.
* The masses are mobilized, have a strong desire for freedom, are unwilling to hand over their weapons, strive for popular justice against the Assadist criminals, etc. This will create huge difficulties for Julani to reintegrate large sectors of the old, Assadist state apparatus.
* There exist numerous contradictions between different rebel factions, different ethnic and religious groups, etc.
* There exist massive external pressures from the U.S., Russia, Türkiye, Iran, Israel, the Gulf states, etc. which pull partly in the same direction (pacifying the revolution) but partly in different directions (with which respectively against which powers to ally).
7. We do not want to suggest that revolutionaries should simply make a minus where Julani makes a plus. The difficult situation after 13,5 years of civil war, the chaotic situation in the country, etc. – all this would force also an authentic revolutionary government to make pragmatic concessions. However, while concessions and retreats are often unavoidable, all tactics must be subordinated to a clear strategy. In the view of the RCIT, such a strategy has to combine two fundamental and interrelated lines:
* The deepening of the revolution by mobilizing and organizing the masses
* The internationalization of the revolution
8. From such a combined strategy arise the following tasks:
* Organising the masses in popular councils in all workplaces, neighbourhoods and villages in which people can freely discuss and decide about the most important issues. Such assemblies should meet regularly and democratically elect delegates who are accountable and recallable. Such delegates should create regional and national councils. It is such a democratic council of the people which should be the highest decision-making body in the country. All those who want to lead the country must subordinate to the will of such a popular council.
* Arming the masses in popular militias under the control of popular councils. Of course, the Syrian people don’t want an armed chaos which creates the basis for arbitrary self-justice and criminality. But neither do the masses want a monopoly on the use of force by a state which is under no popular control.
* The people rightly want a new constitution. Such a new constitution should not be elaborated by a small commission appointed by Julani and decided by a referendum with only the alternative of “Yes” and “No”. It must be rather elaborated and decided by a Revolutionary Constituent Assembly. Such an assembly must be elected by the masses and controlled and defended by popular councils and militias.
* As socialists, we warn the masses that they should not trust the Julani government and that they should not follow its orders which are against the interests of the Syrian people. Let’s be clear: the continuity of the revolution depends on the masses overcoming the government. Hence, we advocate the replacement of the new government by a workers and fellahin government based on popular councils and militias. Its most important tasks would be the destruction of all institutions of the Assad regime, and the creation of a new, democratic state apparatus based on such popular assemblies. Such a new state should be secular and respect the rights of all religious and ethnic groups. It should guarantee the Kurdish people the right to national self-determination. Furthermore, a workers and fellahin governments should expropriate the super-rich elite, nationalize the key sectors of the economy and open the road to a democratic and socialist future.
* All imperialist and regional powers fear the Syrian Revolution. And they are right to fear it because it is an inspiration and symbol that the masses do not accept tyranny and can and will bring down the dictators. We are aware that any revolutionary government will have to make economic deals and diplomatic agreements with other states. The Russian Revolution in 1917, led by Lenin and Trotsky, was also forced to sign agreements and to make concessions to other powers (e.g. the Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Germany). However, revolutionaries must not be naïve. All these powers are deadly enemies of the revolutionary process in Syria and Jolani will be accepted by these only if he successfully suppresses the revolutionary aspiration of the masses (like e.g. Mandela or Ortega did). Hence, the strategic goal must not be the domestic consolidation and bourgeois institutionalisation of the revolution by illusionary striving for good relations with the imperialist and regional powers but rather reaching out to the masses in Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Iran and all countries of the Middle East and globally. Only the mobilisation and the pressure of the popular masses in the region can save the Syrian Revolution against economic pressure and military aggression by its enemies!
* The new government should therefore strongly denounce the Israeli aggression, demand the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces from Golan and declare its support for the Palestinian liberation struggle. This does not mean to start a military offensive against the Zionist monster since Syria does not have the military strength for this at the moment. But it means to politically and practically aid the Palestinian resistance.
* The new government should demand that all foreign powers – Russia, Iran, the U.S., Israel and Türkiye – withdraw their troops from Syria. Here too, we do not say that the rebels should immediately launch military attacks against all these occupation forces. Transitional agreements with this or that foreign power might be necessary. But the goal must be clear and publicly declared: Expel the foreign occupiers!
9. In the international solidarity work, the RCIT calls for the immediate and unconditional recognition of the new provisional government by all states. We demand the immediate and unconditional lifting of all sanctions against Syria. Furthermore, we call for the removal of HTS and other rebel factions from the so-called “terror list” of the imperialist and regional powers.
10. The workers and youth in Syria need a party which fights for such a program of permanent revolution. As a first step, the most advanced, politically conscious elements of the activists should join forces in order to build a revolutionary organisation fighting for a free, democratic and socialist Syria. The RCIT looks forward collaborating with all activists supporting such a program!
Deepen the revolution by organising the masses in popular councils and militias!
For a Revolutionary Constituent Assembly!
For a workers and fellahin government based on popular councils!
For a free Syria, a socialist Syria – a Syria that respects the national and religious rights of all people!
Expel all foreign troops from Syria!
Solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for freedom!
Long live the Arab Revolution!
Unity – Struggle – Victory! [c]
Endnotes:
[i] https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/the-rif-war-a-forgotten-war-923
[ii] https://shs.cairn.info/journal-le-mouvement-social1-2020-3-page-59?lang=en
[iii] Ibid
[iv] Leon Trotsky: On the Sino-Japanese War (September 1937)
[v] Karl Marx: The Bourgeoisie and the Counter-Revolution
[vi] Leon Trotsky: What is the Permanent Revolution? Basic Postulates, https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/tpr/pr10.htm
[vii] https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/12/15/al-julani-aims-for-a-greater-syria/
[viii] Ibid
[ix] Yossi Schwartz: Syria – complete the democratic revolution! 16.12.2024
[xi] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Baal-ancient-deity
[xiii] https://www.britannica.com/place/Babylonia
[xiv] https://www.britannica.com/place/Assyria
[xv] https://www.britannica.com/place/Seleucid-Empire
[xvi] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Syrian-Wars
[xvii] https://theancientworld.substack.com/p/the-roman-province-of-syria
[xviii] https://www.doaks.org/resources/syria/time-periods/islamic
[xix] Ibid
[xx] https://www.arabamerica.com/city-of-light-how-baghdad-became-a-center-of-knowledge/
[xxi] https://www.britannica.com/place/Syria/Ottoman-period
[xxii] https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2016/sykes-picot-100-years-middle-east-map/index.html
[xxiv] https://balfourproject.org/translation-of-a-letter-from-mcmahon-to-husayn-october-24-1915/
[xxv] https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-illusion-of-arab-nationalism/
[xxvi] Ibid
[xxvii] https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-illusion-of-arab-nationalism/
[xxviii] Ibid
[xxix] https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-illusion-of-arab-nationalism/
[xxx] Lenin’s Collected Works, Vol.XXV, p.297, Third Russian Edition
[xxxi] https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/france-in-the-middle-east/
[xxxiii] Ibid
[xxxv] https://timelessmyths.com/stories/the-alawites
[xxxvi] https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/History/Syria-history.htm
[xxxvii] https://www.liquisearch.com/syrian_communist_party/the_1980s_-_repression_and_split
[xxxviii] https://www.britannica.com/summary/Hafiz-al-Assad
[xli] https://minorityrights.org/communities/kurds-5/
[xliv] https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/History/Syria-history.htm
[xlv] https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/syria-war-who-are-real-anti-imperialists
[xlvii] https://www.972mag.com/israeli-communist-party-hides-support-of-assad-from-jews/
[xlviii] https://socialistresistance.org/fourth-international-resolution-on-syria/6014
[xlix] Michael Pröbsting, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/some-first-lessons-from-the-revival-of-the-syrian-revolution/
[l] https://marxist.com/syria-why-is-assad-advancing.htm
[li] https://internationalsocialist.net/en/2011/04/our-activity
[lii] https://internationalsocialist.net/en/2016/12/iec-3
[liii] Jad Bouharoun: How revolution turned to horror in eastern Ghouta, SWP, 21 Mar 2018, Socialist Workers, Issue No. 2597, https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/46320/How+revolution+turned+to+horror+in+eastern+Ghouta
[liv] Michael Pröbsting, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/some-first-lessons-from-the-revival-of-the-syrian-revolution/
[lv] https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-833432
[lvii] https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/400727
[lviii] https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-833432
[lix] The RCIT has published a number of booklets, statements and articles on the Syrian Revolution since its inception in March 2011 which can be read on a special sub-section on this website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/collection-of-articles-on-the-syrian-revolution/
[lx] Syria: Long Live the New Offensive of the Rebels! 28 November 2024, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/syria-long-live-the-new-offensive-of-the-rebels/
[lxi] Michael Pröbsting: Some First Lessons from the Revival of the Syrian Revolution, 29 November 2024, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/some-first-lessons-from-the-revival-of-the-syrian-revolution
[lxii] We refer readers to special pages on our website where the RCIT documents on the wars in Gaza and Lebanon are compiled: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/compilation-of-articles-on-the-gaza-uprising-2023/, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/compilation-of-articles-on-the-gaza-uprising-2023-24-part-2/ and https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/compilation-of-articles-on-the-gaza-uprising-2023-25-part-3/
[lxiii] https://t.me/ClashReport/28442, https://x.com/NotWoofers/status/1863324846815416451
[lxiv] See e.g. https://x.com/KyleWOrton/status/1863222599200751777, https://x.com/Step_Agency/status/1863311269131874379, https://twitter.com/halabtodaytv/status/1863104742022336579.
[lxv] See e.g. https://x.com/HalabTodayTV/status/1862960196261155159, https://twitter.com/nedaapost/status/1863091180616966442, https://twitter.com/albadia24/status/1862916079615353058
[lxvi] Ibid
[lxvii] See e.g. https://t.me/ClashReport/28086, https://t.me/ClashReport/28399, https://t.me/ClashReport/28427
[lxviii] Al Mayadeen: Iraqi Parliament warns of terrorism in Syria, spread in region, 30 November 2024, https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iraqi-parliament-warns-of-terrorism-in-syria–spread-in-regi
[lxix] https://x.com/AakashAfridi3/status/1862979652718882895, https://x.com/alkhattabirw/status/1862945653439013121
[lxx] Contact between the UAE President and the Syrian President, 01 December 2024, https://www.alsharqiya.com/en/news/contact-between-the-uae-president-and-the-syrian-president
[lxxi] See e.g. theses 14-16 in Michael Pröbsting: The Looming Great War in East Africa. A Marxist approach to civil wars, inter-state tensions, and regional power interference at the Horn of Africa, 25 October 2024, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/the-looming-great-war-in-east-africa
[lxxii] Michael Pröbsting: Some First Lessons from the Revival of the Syrian Revolution, 29 November 2024, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/some-first-lessons-from-the-revival-of-the-syrian-revolution/
[lxxiii] Ibid
[lxxiv] Juan Giglio, Convergencia Socialista (RCIT Section in Argentina), 12.12.2024, https://convergenciadecombate.blogspot.com
[lxxv] Since its inception in March 2011, RCIT has published a number of pamphlets, statements and articles on the Syrian revolution, which can be found in a special subsection on this website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/collection-of-articles-on-the-syrian-revolution/
[lxxvi] Assad’s troops enter Kobani in 2019 at the invitation of the SDF
[lxxx] Denis Sokolov, Communist Tendency (RCIT Section in Russia), 8 December 2024, www.thecommunists.net
[lxxxi] https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/rebel-offensive-in-syria-the-fear-of-the-regional-powers/
[lxxxii] Leon Trotsky: Anti-Imperialist Struggle is Key to Liberation. An Interview with Mateo Fossa (1938); in: Trotsky Writings 1938-39, p. 34
[lxxxiii] “The ECHO Research Centre at Laurentian University conducted an opinion poll on 4,858 residents in several areas of Syria between 10 July 2017 and 28 July 2017. According to the poll’s results, 77% of those surveyed disagreed with the Salafist ideology that Tahrir al-Sham and other Salafist groups promote in Idlib, 73% rejected HTS-affiliated local councils in Idlib, 66% thought that HTS is part of al-Qaeda in Syria, and 63% claimed that the dominance of HTS in Idlib could lead to a “second Tora Bora”. Of those who participated in the poll, nearly all of them (close to 100%) considered HTS to be contrary to the goals of the Syrian opposition, although they were split in its extent. 51% of them considered HTS to be contrary to the opposition since its inception, 42% considered HTS to be previously consistent with the opposition, but is no longer so, and 7% considered HTS to be a counter-revolutionary organization” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahrir_al-Sham
[lxxxv] Ibid
[lxxxvi] Ibid
[lxxxix] Ibid
[xc] Ibid
[xcii] https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/the-rif-war-a-forgotten-war-923
[xciii] Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 13 December 2024, www.thecommunists.net
[xciv] Hamid Alizadeh, In Defense of Marxism: The unraveling of Syria: a legacy of imperialist war and meddling 6.12.24
[xcv] Leon Trotsky On the Sino-Japanese War (September 1937)
[xcvi] https://internationalsocialist.net/en/2024/12/middle-east
[xcvii] Leon Trotsky On the Sino-Japanese War (September 1937) https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1937/10/sino.htm
[xcviii] Leon Trotsky Anti-Imperialist Struggle Is Key to Liberation An Interview with Mateo Fossa (September 1938), https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/09/liberation.htm
[c] Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 16 December 2024, www.thecommunists.net